A Case of Justice

After nearly 11 hours of deliberation, jurors returned a verdict Tuesday morning in the case of a Provo baby sitter charged with murder. Just after 11 a.m., Daniella Ruiz was convicted of child abuse homicide, a second-degree felony.


Ruiz was charged with murder or a lesser charge of child abuse homicide in the 2006 death of a 5-month-old Provo boy. Brandon Zamora died in January 2006 while in Ruiz's care. Ruiz claimed that the baby was brought to her asleep and later became pale and unresponsive. The infant was taken to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo in full cardiopulmonary arrest Jan. 4 and died the next day at Primary Children's Medical Center.

Ruiz faces a maximum of 15 years in prison when sentenced on Jan. 13.

Defense attorney Shelden Carter said he is not happy with the verdict and he does not believe Ruiz is guilty of any crime.

"Terribly disappointed," he said. "I do not believe my client did the acts that were attributed to her."

Carter said Ruiz is certainly upset with the jury's decision, which could take her from her children if she goes to jail. He will do what he can to keep her young family together when it comes time for sentencing.

"She's upset," he said. "She's a mother of four little children who need her at home, and now that is jeopardized."

Carter said he believes there was evidence of other causes, including a chronic subdural hematoma in the skull that could spontaneously bleed. Jurors disagreed with the opinion, and Carter said he will now begin exploring opportunities for an appeal.

"I don't anticipate letting it rest," he said.

Prosecutor Chad Grunander said he is happy with what the jury decided and he said they performed their duties well. The jury was given the charge of murder to consider because there was evidence to support the charge.

However, he said, the state knew it would be a hard sell for jurors to believe Ruiz acted knowingly and intentionally to end the child's life.

Child abuse homicide instead requires the defendant to have acted out of depraved indifference.

"Daniella Ruiz doesn't fit the stereotypical suspect of murder," he said. "It was certainly a child abuse case."

Grunander said attorneys have access to the best physicians and child abuse experts in the country at Primary Children's Medical Center.

Such experts testified it was certain the baby's severe injuries were a result of being shaken.

"All of our experts were very clear and certain that there were no bleeding disorders that caused this child's death," he said.

Prosecutor Mariane O'Bryant said she is pleased with the verdict, even though jurors did not convict Ruiz on the first-degree felony charge of murder.

"I'm not surprised," she said. "Certainly we would hope for the first-degree felony, but the second-degree felony was appropriate under the circumstances."

O'Bryant said she did not talk to any jurors about the verdict, but she believes the level of expertise of the prosecution's witnesses may have been a factor in the decision. During the trial, prosecutors attacked the experience of expert witnesses for the defense.

The doctors who testified that Zamora may have died because of a clotting disorder did not have the necessary experience in pediatrics, whereas the prosecution's witnesses were experts in the field.

O'Bryant said the theory that Zamora had been ill or lacking the clotting factor vitamin K likely did not hold up for jurors. A vitamin K deficiency would be expected in a baby born at home, who did not receive a vitamin K shot at birth and who was only breast-fed. None of these factors applied to Zamora, she said.

"It just didn't meet the scenario," she said.

Zamora's parents, Maria Zamora and Jose Osornio, were pleased with the verdict as well, O'Bryant said. The couple needed closure in their son's death and someone needed to take responsibility for what happened.

"They really just wanted a resolution to this," she said. "It's been nearly three years and they wanted to know what happened to their son."