AUBURN — An Androscoggin County Superior Court justice denied a motion Tuesday to dismiss the case against Trevor Averill of Buckfield, accused of murder and manslaughter in the 2020 death of his infant daughter.

Justice Jennifer Archer said state prosecutors have presented enough evidence indicating “someone” inflicted trauma to 2-month-old Harper Averill, which led to her death.

Assistant Attorneys General Suzanne Russell and Lisa Bogue rested their case Monday afternoon after presenting several expert witnesses since the start of the trial Jan. 21. They testified that the infant died of nonaccidental trauma.

Averill was the last sole person in charge of his daughter’s care, prosecutors noted.

Averill told investigators that on July 22, 2020, he was awakened by his daughter for her midnight feeding. He said he took her out of her sleeping area and downstairs where he prepared a bottle of formula. When he rose her to his chest for burping, he said she began gagging, stopped breathing and went limp. He yelled upstairs for the infant’s mother who rushed downstairs and called 911.

Androscoggin County Sheriff’s deputies and rescue personnel performed life-saving measures before transporting Harper to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. The infant was stabilized and then flown to Portland’s Maine Medical Center. She died four days later at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital pediatric intensive care unit, which is part of the medical center.

Advertisement

Trevor Averill also shared with investigators that he dropped his daughter from a waist-high level while standing up from a couch about a month before she died. 

Defense attorneys Verne Paradie and James Howaniec presented their first three witnesses Tuesday before the 12-member jury.

Dr. Janice Ophoven, a forensic pediatric pathologist from Minnesota, said the process of Harper Averill’s death “began sometime prior” to her July 22, 2020, collapse.

Ophoven said the infant had a sudden pathological change in breathing due to clots from previous bleeding in her head, which lines up with a skull fracture from a previous impact injury, and would account for the temporary cessation of breathing that led to the lack of oxygen and lack of blood flow causing the infant’s death.

“It’s a contradiction to the (medical examiners’) findings,” Ophoven said, adding that choking or a seizure would be enough to cause the cascade of symptoms leading to her death.

Ophoven challenged several interpretations of the state’s medical expert witnesses. The lack of a microscopic analysis of the skull fracture, which was not collected at autopsy, could have indicated the injury’s age, she said. She also noted that due to scar tissue presenting under the scalp over the fracture and the difference in healing factors between the skull and nearly all other bones, the skull fracture’s age almost certainly predates the infant’s collapse by about a week.

Advertisement

Ophoven said the retinal bleeding experts associated with shaking has no laboratory testing support.

Diffused lack of oxygen to the brain followed by cardiac pulmonary arrest, all brought on by choking or seizure, can be explained by a preexisting blunt force impact and resulting clot.

“The manner is undetermined,” Ophoven said, “(But was) not done to her the night she collapsed.”

Chris Van Ee, an expert in impact biomechanics from Michigan, testified that according to his and several other studies of impact injuries, the skull fracture Harper Averill suffered weeks before her fatal July 22, 2020, incident could have been caused by her dropping, which state witnesses testified as being extremely unlikely.

Impact studies with crash test dummies, dropping incidents with cadavers and studies of live footage of incidents conclude skull fractures can occur away from direct points of impact, Van Ee said.

“It really differs from person to person,” he said.

Advertisement

Van Ee said fractures at impact typically present in a “starburst” shape, but impact sites causing fractures elsewhere may not show signs of soft tissue damage at the impact point.

Russell asked if any of the studies tested the effects of trauma to the front of the skull as described by Trevor Averill.

Van Ee said no such studies exist to his knowledge.

Russell also pointed out that the only helpful evidence in Van Ee’s study of Harper Averill’s dropping was a video of Trevor Averill reenacting for police how the infant was dropped.

Dr. Julie Mack, a radiologist from Penn State Health in Hershey, Pennsylvania, said after reviewing all exam and autopsy reports and imaging, she found no compelling evidence of nonaccidental trauma.

Mack said the infant’s imaging was not consistent with a ruptured bridging vein — a telltale sign of shaking, which state witnesses identified, but with a brain clot sustained during the infant’s dropping.

Averill faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of depraved indifference murder and up to 30 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter.

The trial will continue Wednesday and is scheduled to last all week.

Comments are not available on this story.