Defense blames psychiatrist in girl's drug death

Plymouth First Assistant District Attorney Frank J. Middleton, in his closing, also blamed Kifuji for having a critical role in Rebecca’s death, calling her a “quack” and someone whose careless oversight of Rebecca’s care made her a “disgrace” to the medical profession.

However, he told jurors that the father was an “abusive selfish bully” in the family, and that on a December night in 2006, he and his wife decided to give Rebecca an overdose of the sedating drug, clonidine, to get her to sleep on a night when she struggled with a severe respiratory illness.

“It’s such an outrageous case of child abuse,” Middleton said.

Michael and Carolyn Riley were both accused of first-degree murder after the youngest of their three child was found dead on the floor of the couple’s bed on the morning of Dec. 13, 2006.

Carolyn was tried separately earlier this year. She was convicted on Feb. 9 of second-degree murder and received a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole after 15 years. She is now at MCI-Framingham.

In both trials, the medical examiner and other toxicology experts said the girl’s bloodstream had a toxic level of clonidine – a blood-pressure medication that is also used as a sedating drug for children with hyperactivity disorder.

Prosecutors say that the couple nicknamed clonidine as “happy medicine” in the household, and routinely gave the drug to the children when they wanted them to quiet down or to go bed early. Medical evidence was also presented, however, that Rebecca may have had an aggressive pneumonia at the time of her death.

Both parents have alleged that they simply followed the medical instructions of the girl's psychiatrist in dispensing medications, and that Kifuji allowed some flexibility in dosages.

Their lawyers have also argued that the girl died of a fast-acting pneumonia, and her death in the middle of the night could not have been anticipated by any reasonable parent.

When Rebecca died on Dec. 13, 2006, she and her two older siblings, then 11 and 6, had all been diagnosed with bipolar and hyperactivity disorders and put on three potent psychiatric drugs by Kifuji, a child psychiatrist who came to the U.S. in 1994 to take part in a triple-residency program at Tufts that would enable her to practice pediatrics, child and adult psychiatry in this country.

She has resumed practicing at Tufts after suspending her practice for about two and a half years after Rebecca's death.

After listening to about two and a half weeks of testimony, jurors are expected to begin deliberating this afternoon. Plymouth County Superior Court Judge Charles Hely has instructed them that other than finding the father guilty of firsts degree murder or acquitting him, they also have the option of convicting of second-degree murder or manslaughter.