Father convicted of 1st-degree murder in death of Rebecca Riley

After the verdict, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said he believes the psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, who prescribed the drugs to Rebecca, should not be allowed to practice medicine in Massachusetts, and he will ask the Board of Registration to reopen an investigation into her medical care.

"Dr. Kifuji is unfit to have a medical license," he said after the verdict was announced. "If what Dr. Kifuji did in this case is the acceptable standard of care for children in Massachusetts, then there is something very wrong in this state."

Shortly after Rebecca died, Kifuji had entered into a voluntary agreement with the board to halt her practice. But two years later, after a grand jury declined to indict her and the board conducted its own inquiry, the board last fall allowed her to return to practice. She is currently seeing patients at Tufts Medical Center.

Cruz said he will collect all the information involving Kifuji that surfaced during both trials -- she was called as a witness in both cases -- and forward it to the state board in hopes they will act against the doctor.

The case drew national attention to the use of psychotropic drugs in young children, and the way parents can exploit the medical and social service system designed to help indigent families.

When Rebecca died, she and her two siblings, then 11 and 6, were each diagnosed by Kifuji with bipolar and hyperactivity disorders and put on three mood-altering drugs.

Prosecutors said Rebecca’s parents wanted the children prescribed psychiatric drugs so the children could be quieted down at will, and to help them qualify for federal benefits to help low-income families with mentally or physically disabled children. Neither of the parents worked, and they also qualified for adult disability benefits.

While she faces a medical malpractice suit filed by the administrator of Rebecca’s estate, Kifuji has resumed practicing at Tufts Medical Center with no restrictions.

In closing arguments in Michael Riley’s trial, both sides lambasted Kifuji for her careless attention to Rebecca. The father's attorney, John Darrell, said that Kifuji “authorized every piece of that poison” that killed Rebecca; and prosecutor Frank J. Middleton referred to her as a “quack” and a “disgrace” to the medical profession.

Darrell declined comment after the verdict.

But prosecutors emphasized to jurors that it was the parents who actually delivered the lethal dosage of medication to Rebecca, acting as a team devoted more to each other than to their children.

In both trials, the medical examiner and other toxicology experts said the girl’s dead body contained a toxic level of clonidine – a blood-pressure medication that is also used as a sedating drug for children with hyperactivity disorder. Other medical experts did testify that the girl also had an aggressive pneumonia at the time of her death.

Both parents, who graduated from Weymouth High School around the same time and last lived in Hull, have alleged that they simply followed Kifuji's instructions in dispensing medications, and that the doctor allowed some flexibility in dosages.

They said the science of measuring clonidine in a dead body is unreliable. Their lawyers have also argued that the girl died of a fast-acting pneumonia, and her death could not have been anticipated by any reasonable parent.

But the prosecutor told jurors that Michael and Carolyn Riley were far from loving parents and instead were callous individuals who turned to psychiatric pills to silence their children when they made inconvenient requests.

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

Before the father was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Charles Hely, Ashley Davidson, a high school student and the half-sister of Rebecca, delivered a victim impact statement, faulting both parents.

"Knowing I will never see Rebecca again – you don't know how much that hurts,'' she said.

Michael Riley's conviction will automatically be reviewed by the Supreme Judicial Court.