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Aide denies guilt in death of teen
"I did not kill the boy," caregiver of autistic youth tells trial
jury
October 10, 2007
By Robert Gavin
An earlier version of this story
gave an incorrect location for Crossgates Mall.
ALBANY -- A health aide accused of
squeezing 13-year-old Jonathan Carey to death said Tuesday he
thought the autistic boy was asleep -- and didn't realize he was
unconscious until they returned from a winter field trip.
Taking the stand on his own behalf,
Edwin Tirado, 36, refuted allegations he and ex-colleague Nadeem
Mall, 33, wasted about 90 minutes making stops after Carey stopped
breathing during a Feb. 15 trip from the O.D. Heck Developmental
Center in Niskayuna to Crossgates Mall in Guilderland.
Tirado also denied sitting on Carey
to restrain him as their van was stopped outside a Hannaford
supermarket on Wolf Road that night. He is accused of smothering the
boy inside the van and covering his tracks.
"I did not kill the boy," Tirado
testified, upon cross-examination from Assistant District Attorney
David Rossi in Albany County Court.
After closing arguments today
before acting Supreme Court Justice Dan Lamont, jurors are expected
to begin deliberating.
Tirado is on trial on manslaughter
and criminally negligent homicide charges in the death of Carey. If
convicted on the charges he faces up to 15 years in state prison.
Tirado questioned the accuracy of
several statements taken by Colonie Police, including a videotaped
interview on Feb. 16.
The Schenectady man said he was
tired and "terrified" when they interviewed him over several hours,
saying it led him to sign off on the statements without reading them
first. He alleged Colonie police said he would be "put away for a
long time" if he didn't answer their questions, promising bail if he
complied. He also said police told him he "already pleaded" guilty
before they videotaped him.
As for other statements, Tirado
said, "They're untrue and those things weren't said."
Rossi seized on Tirado's mention of
being exhausted, saying, "Mr. Tirado, are you telling the jury you
killed a 13-year-old boy because you were tired?"
"I did not kill Jonathan Carey --
that's what I'm saying," Tirado replied.
On the videotape, Tirado told
police he "just froze" when he and Mall realized the boy was
unconscious at a Hess gas station, where they stopped after
Hannaford. But on Tuesday, Tirado testified, "I told Nadeem at Hess
that (Carey) was asleep. I didn't say unconscious."
Tirado also said, "It was at O.D.
Heck that we realized Jonathan was not responding."
In more than two hours of
testimony, Tirado recalled moving to the Capital Region from
Brooklyn in 1987, and doing custodial work for companies at O.D.
Heck. He started as a health aide in 2002, learning various
techniques to restrain unruly patients when needed.
Upon cross-examination, Tirado
acknowledged lying to investigators in September 2003 when they
interviewed him about a co-worker's role in the case of a missing
O.D. Heck consumer.
Describing the night of Carey's
death, Tirado said he asked Mall to drive because he was tired and
didn't want to get into an accident. He told jurors he needed to
restrain Carey outside the Hannaford because the boy was trying to
scratch and bite him. He had to protect himself and a 16-year-old
developmentally disabled youth in the van, Tirado said. At one
point, Tirado described how he touched Carey to restrain him, but
eventually used the straitjacket-like "seated wrap" maneuver for 15
minutes. According to Tirado, he needed to cease the technique or
risk choking the child. He maintains he never sat on Carey, but
needed to lean "in front" of him, still allowing Carey room, when
the boy fell off a back seat in the van. He said no training
prepared him for the situation.
"My options were very limited," he
said.
Tirado said they canceled the
Crossgates trip to go back to O.D. Heck when Carey started acting
up, but later planned to go once he appeared to be asleep. Tirado
said they went to the E.B. Games video store in Niskayuna for a
quick stop, then to his home in Mont Pleasant to get money to shop,
only canceling the mall trip for good when they realized they needed
to be back at the facility.
"I told Nadeem there wasn't enough
time to go to Crossgates -- then O.D. Heck. We should go back to O.D.
Heck instead," Tirado testified, adding, "No one checked on Jonathan
because everyone thought at that time that Jonathan was asleep."
When CPR techniques were being done
to revive the child at O.D. Heck, Tirado was shocked and "felt like
I wanted to throw up," he testified.
Rossi questioned how Tirado could
have still planned to visit Crossgates when he made a purchase
inside the video game store around 7:40 p.m. He also questioned how
anyone else could have physically caused the boy's death.
Mall pleaded guilty to criminally
negligent homicide in July and testified against Tirado last week.
Among the other witnesses
testifying for Tirado was a next door neighbor, Kenneth Jensen, who
recalled Tirado stopping at home that night. He said he saw a boy
with teeth similar to Carey alert inside the van, but couldn't say
for sure it was him. Upon cross-examination, Rossi asked the witness
about a number of past convictions, including one for filing a false
instrument and another for possessing stolen property.
"That was so long ago I can't
remember," Jensen replied.
Gavin can be reached at 434-2403 or
by e-mail at
rgavin@timesunion.com.
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