Crime & Courts

Trial starts for Wasilla man accused of toddler daughter's death in 2008

PALMER -- The emotional trial of a Wasilla father accused of killing his 15-month-old daughter in 2008 got underway in Palmer Superior Court this week.

Prosecutors say Clayton Allison abused the girl, critically damaging her brain. He told authorities she fell down the stairs the day she died.

But supporters, including the girl's mother, believe Allison deserves to go free.

Christiane "CJ" Allison sat in the courthouse gallery Thursday with nearly a dozen relatives and friends fighting to clear the murder charges against her husband.

Separated by a low wood partition in the small courtroom, both parents listened to the 911 call Clayton Allison made in September 2008, just hours before his daughter Jocelynn died from a traumatic brain injury at Providence Alaska Medical Center. Clayton Allison sat quietly. His wife sobbed when his voice was heard comforting the girl.

In the recording, Allison told an emergency dispatcher his daughter fell down eight or more carpeted steps while he was in the bathroom. Her eyes were "half-lidded" and she was struggling for breath.

"I shouldn't have left her!" he said.

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Earlier in life, the girl had struggled to gain weight and was just learning to stand at the time of her death, according to testimony Thursday.

A Matanuska-Susitna Borough EMT who responded to the couple's home off Knik-Goose Bay Road said the case stuck with her and remains "very emotional" for her even now. A prosecutor asked the medic why.

Prosecution witness Sandra Hoeft testified that Clayton Allison didn't show the kind of concern or care that other parents in his situation usually do.

"Images I can't get out of my head," Hoeft said. "Seeing a child laying on the ground all by herself, no one with her. Nobody talking to her or touching her, in a state that's very critical."

The girl's grandmother had frantically flagged down the ambulance, but Allison stayed downstairs by the door with Jocelynn upstairs in the living room alone, she said. Medics had to ask her father where the girl was. She was next to a couch, her arms and legs spread out and limp.

By the time the medevac helicopter lifted off, the girl was unconscious and not responding even to painful stimuli, Hoeft said. Doctors at Providence found blood on her brain, a bruised lung and two displaced vertebrae. She did not survive surgery and died that night.

Prosecutors plan to depict Allison, the girl's sole caretaker because his wife worked full time, as a neglectful and sometimes abusive parent who ultimately caused her death, according to opening statements Thursday morning.

Expert witnesses the DA's office expects to call include specialists in radiology and head trauma, and Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, a Wasilla-based provider specializing in child abuse pediatrics, according to assistant district attorney Krista Anderson.

The experts will testify that the type of injuries medical tests revealed in the girl's brain "don't come from a fall down the stairs," Anderson told the jury.

Attorneys with the state public defender's office, representing Allison, are portraying him as a loving father and say it's the state's case that's lacking, including the cause of death as homicide.

Jocelynn suffered from a chronic fluid buildup between her brain and skull that could have caused something like a fall down carpeted steps to lead to her death, public defender Ariel Toft told the jury in her opening statement. The girl's head size, physical development and motor skills were delayed -- her parents were doing physical therapy with her -- and she suffered from a joint disorder. She wasn't gaining weight, so her parents visited with a nutritionist.

Jocelynn Allison was seen by medical professionals 41 times in her 15 months, Toft told the jury. All were required to report any sign of child abuse but none suspected the girl's father, she said.

Clayton Allison was calm during the 911 call because of his time as a dispatcher for Guardian Security Systems, Toft said.

CT scans after Jocelynn's death showed one old and one new subdural hematoma, a pocket of blood between the brain and skull, usually resulting from severe head injury. Investigators saw the old injury as an indication of abuse.

"There will be debate in this trial about the timing of the injuries," Toft told the jury Thursday.

Experts will testify that the child's injuries did not indicate child abuse, as the prosecution claims, she said.

The trial this week comes more than six years after the toddler's death because of procedural upheavals.

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A Palmer grand jury in 2009 indicted Allison on charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and second-degree murder.

Alaska State Troopers that year said the girl's injuries couldn't have come from falling down carpeted steps and based their case on a confession from Allison. He told investigators he had slapped her with increasing force while she sat in a highchair, refusing to eat and throwing food on the floor, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

"Clayton said that at that time her head would snap forward, striking the tray table," an investigator wrote at the time. "The other blows would be a forehand slap followed by a backhanded slap causing her head to strike the side of the chair."

Palmer Superior Court Judge Vanessa White -- she's now presiding over the trial -- threw out the confession in 2012. White ruled that investigators didn't give Allison enough of a chance to ask for an attorney before he admitted slapping his daughter, according to a report in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. The case was later dismissed.

Prosecutors obtained a new grand jury indictment in 2013.

Zaz Hollander

Zaz Hollander is a veteran journalist based in the Mat-Su and is currently an ADN local news editor and reporter. She covers breaking news, the Mat-Su region, aviation and general assignments. Contact her at zhollander@adn.com.

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