The babysitter’s trial over the death of a baby goes before the jury

Jurors began their deliberations in the manslaughter case against babysitter Dixie Denise Villa after hearing closing arguments late Wednesday afternoon in the February 2019 “Benadryl” poisoning death of 7-month-old Abigail Lobisch.

Deputy Prosecutor Tiffany Kaeo told jurors: “Abigail Lobisch would be six years old today if she were alive…Abi never got the chance to grow up.”

Showing a photo of the smiling child taken on February 22, 2019, and then a photo when she was found dead at Villa’s Aliamanu Military Housing home on February 24, 2019, she said: “Abi is dead because of a series of choices that defendant made. .”

Those choices included the February 23, 2019, eviction of two daughters and a friend, who were visiting from Arizona and New York and were helping care for four children under the age of five: Abigail, her two-year-old brother, Villa’s daughter , who has Down syndrome, and her son.

She made the choice to give the three small children iPads. “She made the choice to give Abi diphenhydramine. She made the choice to sleep with the baby in her arms.”

Villa, then 40, told police that on the morning of February 24, 2019, she found Abi face down in Villa’s bed, where she was sleeping with all four children in her bedroom.

Anna Lobisch dropped off her baby and son at Villa at the Aulani Disney Resort & Spa at 10:45 a.m. on February 23, 2019. After spending the day at the pool with the three older girls and the four younger girls, Villa dropped the older girls off to spend 20 minutes on the slides watching the little ones. An argument broke out because Villa was upset and told the three eldest to pack up and leave.

They returned to Villa’s house and Abi was crying, according to the testimony of Briana Calderon, Villa’s daughter’s friend, but Abi stopped crying by the time they finished packing and left at 7 or 8 p.m.

“She couldn’t handle four kids on her own,” Kaeo said. Therefore, she confirmed that the older girls would help watch them before agreeing to babysit, she said.

Villa was Abigail’s regular babysitter, but Anna Lobisch had asked her to watch the children on February 23.

Villa was charged with second-degree manslaughter five months later after police received autopsy results, including toxicology test results.

Jury instructions allow jurors to find Villa guilty of the lesser crimes of second-degree assault or second-degree reckless endangerment.

Kaeo said, “It’s easier to say there may be reasonable doubt,” but that “doesn’t make it the right decision,” and implored them to use reason and common sense.

Kaeo said crimes that occur in a home “between two people are very rarely seen by others… You can solve a puzzle without knowing every letter and number.”

“You have evidence from first responders,” witnesses Briana Calderon and Anna Lobisch (Abigail’s mother), the state’s doctors, text messages and photos, Kaeo said.

But “the defense blames Abi’s mother for taking a drug she may have been allergic to, and blames the medical examiner” for determining the cause of death as diphenhydramine (the antihistamine in Benadryl), Kaeo said.

Megan Kau, Villa’s court-appointed attorney, said, “Denise is not guilty because after all these witnesses, no one told us how Abigail Lobisch died.”

She repeatedly said there were no witnesses and no one can say what specific brand of diphenhydramine killed her and whether they were pills, liquid or topical.

“There is as much evidence against Denise as there are these five individuals,” Kau said, naming Anna Lobisch, Villa’s older daughters, Ariana Rivera and Amaya Gordon, and Calderon, as well as James Lobisch, Abigail’s father, who could have killed her. give the medicine.

However, James Lobisch was on guard duty that weekend and Villa kicked out the three older girls, as Calderon testified, and left by 8 p.m., Kaeo said.

Kau accused Anna Lobisch of lying when she gave reasons for needing a babysitter that weekend. She testified that she went to school and needed to study, but said under cross-examination that her husband had physically abused her and that she wanted to spend time with a male friend.

Kau questioned Lobisch about text messages with a friend who was concerned about taking Tylenol PM because it contained diphenhydramine.

A defense expert said that because Anna Lobisch was allergic to Benadryl, she may not have the enzyme to break down the drug, which could have been passed to her baby.

He could not say whether the enzyme can break down acetaminophen and not Benadryl.

She called the Prime Minister’s Tylenol issue a diversion and misleading.

Dr. Jon Gates, who performed the autopsy, testified that there was no acetaminophen in Abigail’s system.

Kaeo said in rebuttal, “We do know how she died. She died of diphenhydramine toxicity. That is the cause of her death.”

In the 12 hours leading up to Abigail’s death, no one else could have given her the antihistamines, she said.

“You don’t have to decide whether it’s a pill, topical or oral,” Kaeo said. “What you have to agree on … is that it was the defendant who gave her the diphenhydramine, and it was the defendant who caused her death.”

“Breast milk cannot secrete enough to cause a fatal dose of diphenhydramine and Abi does not have a metabolic disorder,” Kaeo said. “The only metabolic disorder identified does not affect the body’s ability to break down the relevant enzymes for diphenhydramine.”

Kaeo ignored Kau’s attempt to refute a pediatric emergency physician’s estimate that 30 doses of diphenhydramine would be needed. She had him pour 30 cups of 20 ml, a total of 60 ml, and compare this to 4 ounces of formula, when a child’s dose of 5 ml should have been used.

Villa did not take this position because the state could have asked her how she told Calderon to lie to military police on Feb. 21, 2019, to investigate complaints that she was operating an unlicensed daycare center on military housing.