PALMER -- A Palmer Superior Court jury on Thursday began deliberating whether a 31-year-old Wasilla father killed his 15-month-old daughter more than five years ago.
Clayton Allison told 911 dispatchers on Sept. 24, 2008, that his daughter had fallen down the stairs and was having trouble breathing. A medical helicopter flew Jocelynn Allison to Providence Alaska Medical Center. She died that evening during surgery.
Prosecutors contend Allison caused the brain bleed that killed his daughter by shaking and hitting her at home, perhaps out of his frustration at serving as the stay-at-home caretaker of a bright but developmentally disabled child.
Public defenders representing Allison say the girl died after falling down the stairs, though an undiagnosed, pre-existing neurological condition may have contributed to her death, and say the state's case hinges on a flawed report by the former medical examiner.
Allison's wife, Christiane "CJ" Allison -- Jocelynn's mother -- has spent the five-week trial that began Jan. 15 in court supporting her husband. About 30 of the couple's family members and friends filled courtroom benches on Thursday wearing green and black tiger-striped ribbons.
Both sides presented closing arguments Thursday, summing up their cases for the jury.
Family support isn't evidence, Assistant District Attorney Michael Perry told them.
Perry showed jurors photographs of the little girl's body before autopsy to highlight what he said were bruises linked to physical abuse: four on her face, one each on either side of her ribs and several others. He pantomimed how the chest bruises could have come from Allison's thumbs as he shook his daughter.
Several physicians testified during the trial that other injuries were consistent with those seen in child abuse, including retinal hemorrhage, bruises on her brain and dislocated vertebrae in her neck.
"Make no mistake," Perry said. "Jocelynn died as a result of being shaken and hit."
Allison in 2009 told investigators he repeatedly slapped Jocelynn to get her to eat, but the jury never heard his confession. Superior Court Judge Vanessa White threw out the confession in 2012 after ruling that investigators failed to give Allison adequate chance to ask for an attorney.
Public defender Hannah Thorssin-Bahri told the jury that Wasilla physician and child abuse expert Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson relied on inaccurate or missing data, or probabilities rather than fact, in her testimony and that there was no evidence of child abuse during the girl's life. One of the girl's doctors, however, suspected "a very rare genetic disorder" causing the girl's slow physical development -- she was only starting to pull herself up to standing a month before she died.
Thorssin-Bahri pointed to brain scans showing an earlier hematoma as evidence that perhaps the bruise that caused the girl's fatal swelling was a re-bleed of the first one. She also called Perry's theory that Allison was a frustrated young father "nonsensical" and at times offensive.
"People don't just do heinous things for no reason," she said.
The jury is weighing charges of second-degree murder, criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter.
As defined in their instructions, a murder conviction means Allison knowingly engaged in an action causing Jocelynn's death under circumstances "manifesting extreme indifference to human life." A manslaughter conviction means he intentionally, recklessly or knowingly caused his daughter's death, while criminally negligent actions must be proven for a criminally negligent homicide conviction.