On June 25, 1991, Alan Gimenez’s daughter, Priscilla, was born via emergency C-section. Shortly after birth, she had difficulty breathing and had thick yellow mucus in her mouth. Due to a prolonged birthing process before the C-section, doctors suspected she might have ingested amniotic fluid containing feces and potentially had pneumonia. Tests including a spinal tap, blood and urine samples, and a chest x-ray revealed fluid retention and a healing fractured rib. Priscilla received antibiotics and was placed on oxygen for the first two days of her life. Despite efforts, doctors could not pinpoint the exact cause of her health issues.
After leaving the hospital, Priscilla began having a fever. Soon after, she started throwing up forcefully and having seizures again. Worried, her parents took her back to the hospital, but the doctors did not do any tests at that time. Instead, they told her parents to change how they fed her, adding instructions to give her less formula, feed her while she was sitting up, and burp her more often. They also suggested some natural remedies like CBD oil, but since Priscilla was just a newborn, they could not use those types of remedies yet.
When Priscilla was about seven weeks old, she threw up and had a seizure while Alan was feeding her. Alan called 9-1-1 and attempted CPR. When the paramedics arrived, they saw Priscilla having another seizure. Priscilla was rushed to the hospital where the doctors ran many tests to find out why she was having problems. Blood tests showed she had anemia, and when they did a spinal tap (which checks for blood in the spine), it came out bloody. Priscilla had an infection in her mouth and a tear under her tongue, likely from a seizure. She also had trouble with clotting, making it hard to draw her blood. During testing, doctors found out Priscilla’s mom had Hepatitis A. Even with all these issues, doctors could not figure out why she was throwing up so much and having seizures. Doctors let her leave the hospital only three days after her arrival.
But not long after leaving, while Alan was feeding her, Priscilla threw up violently and had another seizure. Alan gave her some medicine that the doctor had prescribed for Priscilla’s seizures and rushed her back to the emergency room. This time, the hospital conducted a CT scan for the first time, and they saw an old rib fracture and bleeding in her brain. Doctors conducted more blood tests and found out she needed three blood transfusions. Additional blood tests confirmed her anemia and severe blood clotting issues. The next day, another CT scan was done, and a surgical bolt was inserted into her head. Tragically, Priscilla passed away later that day at just 49 days old.
In 1992, the jury found Alan guilty of killing Priscilla. Many of Priscilla’s health problems were not told to Alan’s defense during the trial, nor were they discovered by his defense attorney. Instead, experts from the prosecution said Alan must have shaken Priscilla to death. The Medical Examiner said he found blood around Priscilla’s brain (a subdural hematoma), bleeding behind her eyes (retinal hemorrhages), and her brain was swollen, believed to be a “triad of findings” in the diagnostic of “Shaken Infant Syndrome (SBS)” cases. At that time, doctors thought these three signs were proof that someone had shaken a baby violently.
What the Medical Examiner did not know was that the hospital had slides of tissue that proved Priscilla’s bleeding behind her eyes happened after she went to the hospital. Also, the record shows the bleeding in her brain and the broken rib likely happened during her birth. Since Priscilla’s death, experts have found that the “triad of findings” in SBS cases being consistent with violent shaking has been discredited. Research shows that you can not shake a baby to death without some type of head or neck injury. The record shows Priscilla did not have any injuries like that. New evidence from forensic science supports the notion that Priscilla died from medical problems, not from being shaken.
In 2015, after 24 years of wrongful incarceration, Alan was released on parole. TIC continues to fight to clear his name.
