Video of Haleigh takes the stand
Jurors in abuse trial appear moved
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SPRINGFIELD - Some jurors seemed moved to tears yesterday in the child abuse trial of Haleigh Poutre's stepfather, as they watched a 26-minute video showing the brain-injured girl moving around in a wheelchair, feeding herself with trembling hands, and carefully printing her name.
The video was the first public glimpse of the 14-year-old Westfield girl since 2005, when she became the center of a national end-of-life debate after the state's child-protection agency sought to remove her life support, saying she was in an irreversible vegetative state. In that context, yesterday's images of Haleigh were as inspirational as they were painful, showing the resilience of a child who defied predictions about her fate.
The courtroom of Hampden County Superior Court Judge Judd Carhart was silent as the soundless video played on a half-dozen computer screens stationed near the jurors' chairs, lawyers' tables, and spectator sections. At times, several jurors wiped their eyes. The defendant, Jason Strickland, 34, showed little emotion, a look he has maintained through the last eight days of testimony.
The video showed Haleigh using a fork and spoon, manipulating an alphabet board to communicate, and placing a music CD into a boom box. At one point she leaned across a table and, without much hesitation and in clear print, wrote, "Haleigh Poutre."
"That's pretty much her functional level now," said Dr. Jeffrey Forman, director of rehabilitation at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, where Haleigh has been living and attending a day school for nearly three years.
Forman testified that Haleigh has made dramatic progress since she arrived at his pediatric rehabilitation hospital in late January 2006, after regaining consciousness while at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. He said that she cannot sit up by herself. With some help, she can walk about 100 feet, but by the end is very tired, he said.
Haleigh can speak, he said, but her language is hard to understand. She uses a board with alphabet letters and other symbols to express herself, and "her communication is very limited."
When asked by prosecutor Laurel Brandt whether Haleigh will ever live independently, Forman replied, "I don't think she will."
Defense lawyer Alan Black tried unsuccessfully to persuade the judge to suppress digital footage of Haleigh at the Franciscan Hospital, saying it would emotionally sway the jury against his client. He also failed to suppress another video, aired earlier in the day, showing a healthy, 10-year-old Haleigh performing a high-spirited solo dance to an Elvis Presley song.
Within the next day or two, her stepfather is expected to take the stand to defend himself against the state's charges that he and his wife, Holli Strickland, severely abused Haleigh over a five-year period, culminating in a near-fatal violent brain injury in autumn 2005.
Black said Jason Strickland will testify that he had long believed his wife's reports that Haleigh had a psychological disorder causing her to hurt herself, including sometimes hurling herself down sets of stairs.
Strickland is expected to portray himself as a hard-working mechanic who accepted his wife's explanation of Haleigh's many injuries. Doctors and state social workers also accepted Holli Strickland's explanation that Haleigh hurt herself, causing them to dismiss more than a dozen anonymous complaints from local residents who suspected that the Stricklands were abusing the girl.
However, Dr. Christine Barron, a forensic pediatrician from
She pointed to a lengthy linear scar that wrapped around Haleigh's torso as an example of an injury she could not have inflicted herself. Barron said that injury seemed caused by a wire-like object striking Haleigh in that area.
Barron also said that it was possible that Haleigh's severe head injury was caused by falling down the stairs, although the extent of her injury indicated she would have been pushed or kicked with considerable force.
It has been unclear exactly why Holli, Haleigh's adoptive mother, and Jason Strickland would have reserved such harsh treatment for Haleigh, the eldest of the three children in the home. Angela Harris, a 14-year-old friend of Haleigh's sister, testified she once heard Haleigh, then 11, crying after entering a first-floor bathroom with the couple, then emerging with a newly cut lip. Harris said that Haleigh wore pull-up pants then, a reference to Haleigh's apparent difficulty at times controlling her urine or bowel movements.
Holli Strickland died in an apparent murder-suicide with her grandmother shortly after she and her husband were arrested on child abuse charges.
Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.
