Newborn was decapitated during delivery, family says. Now baby’s death ruled homicide
A Georgia couple horrifically lost their newborn when the infant was decapitated during delivery in July, according to a lawsuit they filed against their obstetrician.
Now, the Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the manner of baby Treveon Taylor Jr.’s death as a homicide, according to a Feb. 6 news release.
The baby’s head was “completely separated from the body,” Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office Director Brian Byars told McClatchy News over the phone on Feb. 7.
The manner of death was declared a homicide because it “was caused by the actions of another person,” according to the office, and the determination is “not to be confused by the criminal charge.”
The Clayton County Police Department is investigating the newborn’s death, Maj. Frank Thomas told McClatchy News on Feb. 7.
The department won’t “comment on the specifics of open and active investigations,” he said.
With their lawsuit, Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor accused their obstetrician, Dr. Tracey St. Julian, of pushing on the baby’s head and neck during delivery, ultimately resulting in decapitation at Southern Regional Medical Center in Clayton County on July 10, McClatchy News previously reported.
She did so when the baby’s head became stuck in the vaginal canal in a complicated medical event known as shoulder dystocia, the lawsuit said.
The county medical examiner ruled the baby’s immediate cause of death as a “fracture-dislocation with complete transection, upper cervical (C1-C2) spine and spinal cord” due to “shoulder dystocia, arrest of labor, and fetal entrapment in the birth canal.”
The office consulted with experts across the country about the baby’s death, the medical examiner said, adding that they were in “total disbelief” that it occurred in the way it did.
Ross and Taylor have accused St. Julian and the hospital of trying to hide that their baby was decapitated, steering them away from having an autopsy performed and encouraging them to cremate the baby’s body.
“We just want justice for our son. They lied to us,” Taylor said at a Feb. 7 news conference streamed by 11Alive.
Southern Regional Medical denied the lawsuit’s accusations against the hospital and said the baby had died in utero before “the delivery and decapitation” in a Sept. 13 statement to McClatchy News.
Funeral home reports baby’s ‘detached head’
Three days after the baby’s death, the Clayton County Medical Examiner’s Office said it received a call from Willie Watkins Funeral home about whether “the death of a baby with a detached head had been reported” to the office, according to the news release.
The funeral home said the baby’s family hired a private pathologist for an autopsy and that they found it “unusual” that the medical examiner’s office “was not already involved,” the office said.
Ross and Taylor hired Dr. Jackson Gates to conduct an autopsy of their son and paid him $2,500, according to a separate lawsuit filed against him, McClatchy News reported.
The couple sued the Atlanta-based doctor in September, accusing him of recording the autopsy without their permission and posting graphic videos online to his Instagram account.
After the funeral home’s call to the medical examiner’s office, the office said its chief investigator, Betty Honey, visited the funeral home to examine the baby and initiated an investigation.
Honey requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Medical Examiner’s Office to perform another autopsy of the infant, which was performed on July 14 with Byars present, the office said.
Byars recalled his reaction to seeing the baby’s body while speaking with McClatchy News and said he felt “numb and overwhelmed,” describing the feeling as “utter shock.”
“There’s nothing you can do to prepare yourself for these circumstances,” he said.
Byars and his office “were very surprised” to learn of the baby’s death from the funeral home, he added.
He said it was “abnormal” that they didn’t receive a call from a public safety department, a sheriff’s office or a hospital.
According to Ross and Taylor’s lawsuit against St. Julian, their baby’s legs and torso were delivered through a Cesarean section while the head was delivered vaginally.
The couple said they were prevented from holding their son after delivery and only allowed to view his body that was “wrapped tightly in a blanket with his head propped on top of his body,” according to a statement previously provided to McClatchy News.
As police investigate, there’s a possibility that the investigation will be referred to a district attorney, the medical examiner’s office said.
“The most offensive aspect of this case deals with the lies and the cover up that occurred after the decapitation,” attorney Roderick E. Edmond, one of the attorneys representing Ross and Taylor, said at the news conference.
This story was originally published February 7, 2024 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Newborn was decapitated during delivery, family says. Now baby’s death ruled homicide."
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