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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 12, 2009

Family holds funeral service for baby and details released in infant's death


Advertiser Staff

On the day the family held services for 7-week-old Maika Lawelawe-Westbrook, court documents released today outline the moments before the baby died while in his aunt's care.

His aunt, Natalee K. Westbrook, is accused of causing a head injury that led to Maika's death on May 10.
The boy is the son of Westbrook's sister, Jessica Westbrook.
Natalee Westbrook was charged and posted $150,000 bail.
At the funeral service today at Mililani Memorial Park & Mortuary, family members shooed media away and asked that they be granted privacy. Maika will be buried this afternoon.
Dozens of family, friends and well-wishers filed into the chapel throughout
the morning. Although services for the infant were open to the public, family members
asked a newspaper reporter and photographer outside the chapel to leave.
“Now is not the time,” said Sonny Westbrook Sr., father of Jessica and Natalee Westbrook. “Not right now. Out of respect, we’re asking for no coverage.”
The elder Westbrook said he did not wish to make any other statement at the time because he had too many other matters on his mind.
Police give this account of what happened to Maika:
His mom left him with his aunt at 10:30 a.m. on May 10. The aunt, a mother of a 3-month-old daughter, fed Maika twice, burped him several times and changed his diaper once.
Natalee Westbrook told police she laid Maika on the sofa in the living room and positioned her back against the sofa, facing forward with her left arm extended straight outward. The baby was on her left side. They fell asleep. She woke first and left the baby asleep on the sofa.
When she returned from the bathroom, she found the baby on the floor not breathing.
"She screamed and (her boyfriend) came out of another bedroom and asked what happened," according to the documents. "Natalee ran outside of her unit and asked her neighbor if he could help her ... Maika gasped once for breath on his own, but was still unresponsive."
The baby was taken by Emergency Medical Services to a hospital and later the Honolulu Medical Examiner office determined that the baby's death was from an abusive head trauma and the manner of death was homicide.