ADDISON WEAST - 16 months (2010) - Henderson NV

First off I would just like to start off and say I am not on any side; not Charlie’s, not Jamie’s, defiantly not Cody, and I am a firm believer in families minding their own. Having this said I feel that there are some very important pieces of this puzzle in regards to all of the discussions above. For one you cannot sit here and bad mouth each other; whether you feel you are or not 90% of the time it will come off ill intended if you are speaking of another.
Everyone here needs to remember that not all things in life can for one be avoided and others be changed. Although this is not specifically the case in this situation none if this above is going to bring that precious child back to us. I am not going to state who I am directly but I know all parties involved. Now I can’t say that this is the greatest thing but it does mean that I have seen and heard it all.
Before I begin to rant like a mad person I want to say that all of you persons above; Charlie’s family especially have no room for discussion in stating anything about partying or drinking while a child is present.
Having a good time or having people over your home while alcohol and children are present is not illegal by any means. Yes some of the persons there were underage drinking but some of you people above commenting on the parties or drinking are no better than the ones at that party. For one a lot of you provided alcohol for minors, second some of you were present at the time of either those parties or ones prior, so this should not be a topic for discussion. How many families do you know that play game night and have children or people who play poker and smoke and while the children are present.
I know that you are all morning and would love to point a finger and anyone and everyone involved, but the fact of the matter is why don’t you focus on the person on trial or soon to be on trial right now. The person who single handedly placed his hands on the child and did nothing after harm was amidst. Jamie may have done wrong by dating a person with such a history and she probably dwells upon the fact that she left that angel with him and this happened. But, think about this are you living with that on your conscience no you’re not and when you love/like and trust someone you don’t ever think that they would murder or abuse your child. Now back to the rest of the drama above, the law takes time to process. Not everything can be in the right now attitude like we all wish it could be.
There are reasons these things take such a long time. Such as a custody hearing. I was a good friend of Charlie’s for a long time and if I were the family court judge I wouldn’t give custody to him over Jamie. He rarely had a job, he was in trouble a lot in high school and after. If something bad was happening in the group of friends I would be money to say that Charlie was probably there at one point. Now this does not mean that he was not the best father in the world and I know this first hand that he loved that little girl with everything he had inside of him but so did Jamie. Calling her an Egg donor is no better than calling your son a Sperm donor. If the family court judge felt that your son was fit to have sole custody then he would have been granted it. Family court judges are looking for specific things and the majority of the time the mother will always get custody unless there are very distinct factors at play. I don’t feel that Jamie should be charged, she is already being forced to live with her decisions and the fact that she will never get to see her baby girl again.
Another comment that was made above was that Jamie the mother was not showing any remorse or sadness after well everyone shows grief differently, after my mother passed away I couldn’t cry at her funeral I was in shock I couldn’t believe that my best friend was just taken from this world, and I began to binge drink and go out a lot. I felt the best cure for me at the time was to surround myself with as many friends, people and family as possible. So you cannot always judge a person’s reaction to a traumatic incident and speaking ill of Jamie or Charlie is wrong in any nature. If you want to speak ill of Cody I doubt anyone will stop you. But these families on both sides are still fighting this fight and struggling to find reasoning that isn’t there. So neither side should speak ill of the other. We all have dirt on one another I know myself personally I know quite a bit about where parenting came from on Charlie’s side. Now do I or am I going to dramatically speak about it NO because it isn’t necessary. Just like bringing up photos from Jamie’s apartment are not necessary, it is like telling everyone in the world that they are never allowed to have fun or have people over. Please, are we so naive to believe that this was a dramatic effect on the child or who are any of you to say that the child was there during one or any of the parties in question. I have never seen a photo in which Jamie or Cody or anyone had alcohol in their hand and the baby was present whether Addison be in the photo or in the background of the photo I have never seen this, so none of your hearsay is going to work without proof that the child was in fact there at that exact moment the party was going on. The child could have been at a parents house or friend that was babysitting. Every parent needs a break sometimes so please hold off on the speculations and focus on the monster that really took our precious Addison. I hope you all see where I am going with this very long rant and you correct your ways. Let’s be adults and let the justice system do their job and prosecute who they see fit for the crime.

Snipped from one of the news articles:

"Court records indicate Geddings has also been arrested in connection with the abuse and neglect of his own son.

The maximum sentence Geddings could receive on a child endangerment charge for his abuse of his son is a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. He was released from custody in July after posting $3,000 bail, court records show. He is currently being held in the Henderson Detention Center without bail."

In my opinion, Jamie should be charge with child neglect because she allowed this animal to watch her baby alone and knew he had been charged with abusing his own infant son. Also, a family member has said the murderer had an explosive temper and no one should be around babies with angry tempers. It takes a lot of patience to care for children and leaving Addison with a big bully brute like this POS was a disaster waiting to happen. She should be punished for negligence.

I hope Cody gets life in prison and pays for what he did to this precious baby, but Jamie needs to serve time as well. If she doesn't she'll just get pregnant again without even getting married and then some other POS boyfriend will babysit her childen and possibly harm them.

Mother testifies she didn’t think boyfriend would hurt her baby daughter
Child abuse murder case continues for Henderson man

By Dave Toplikar (contact)

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 | 4:48 p.m.


The mother of a 16-month-old girl whose 2010 death was attributed to head injuries testified Thursday that she misled hospital officials and police at first about her boyfriend’s involvement because he told her he was worried about going to jail in a different child abuse case involving his own son.

“I cared about this person, ” Jaime Higgons testified during the second day of the trial for Cody Geddings, 26, who has been charged with murder and child abuse with substantial bodily harm in the death of Higgons’ daughter, Addison Weast.

“I didn’t think he was going to hurt her,” said Higgons, who was 19 at the time.

Higgons testified that Geddings was babysitting for her daughter when Addison was injured on March 31, 2010. The toddler died on April 2, 2010, at University Medical Center.

Although Geddings has given two different accounts of what happened, Thomas Bellomo, a UMC emergency pediatric surgeon who treated the girl, has testified this week that the injuries the baby suffered didn’t match up with either of Geddings’ stories.

Bellomo said the injuries he found on the baby included a blow to the head, brain swelling and retinal hemorrhaging, which he said were more consistent with a baby being shaken violently.

According to statements made by attorneys this week, Geddings first told Higgons that Addison fell out of a crib and hit her head on the floor.

But when later questioned by police who told him that couldn’t have caused such a massive head injury, Geddings gave them a second story.

Geddings says that a 145-pound tank used in oxy-acetylene welding had been perched in a wobbly chair in his backyard. Geddings told them he had taken Addison into the backyard with him, and as the baby toddled around she accidentally moved the chair and the heavy tank fell on her.

During her testimony today, Higgons said Geddings never told her about the heavy tank falling on her daughter, but she learned about it later through an officer investigating the case.

Higgons testified that she asked Geddings to take care of her daughter that morning while she was at cosmetology school. She said Geddings had called her earlier in a happy mood because he had been served the divorce papers from his wife.

Higgons said he called her about 12:07 p.m. to tell her that Addison had just fallen out of her playpen and that she needed to “hurry and get home” to take care of her.

Higgons said she didn’t think it was serious at the time because the playpen was not very high. She said Geddings called her several times as she was driving home to find out where she was.

Higgons said when she arrived, Geddings was pacing back and forth. She saw her daughter lying on a bed and the girl’s eyes were rolled back and it looked like she was having a seizure. Higgons said she quickly changed her own shirt, took the girl out to her car and drove to St. Rose Dominican Hospitals' Rose de Lima campus, which was close to Geddings’ home. Higgons said Geddings told her he couldn’t go with her to the hospital because of the other child abuse case that was pending.

To protect Geddings, Higgons told hospital authorities that she had been home when the girl was injured. After the girl was taken to UMC, police were called in and Higgons gave them the same story about the girl falling out of the playpen.

However, in her second interview with police, when they told her the baby couldn’t have suffered those injuries from a fall onto a carpeted floor, she finally told them that Geddings had been babysitting the girl.

When she talked to police the third time, she learned what Geddings had told them about the large tank falling on her daughter.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Staudaher showed Higgons photos of the backyard and had her describe the kind of welding tank that Geddings normally used. She said the only place she had ever seen the tank Geddings said fell on her daughter was when it had been strapped to another tank on a two-wheeled dolly.

The photos police took after the incident showed the large oxygen tank strapped to the dolly. Higgons said she had never seen the large oxygen tank sitting on the chair, which swiveled and rocked. She said she had never seen Geddings use the larger tank in his welding work on cars.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/12/mother-testified-she-didnt-think-boyfriend-would-h/

BABYJUSTICE-First off I assume you must think that you are above all people that have children out of wedlock. It happens a lot just because a person is not married and they are young does not make them a bad parent! Half of our own parents were around 17-22 when we were all born and 80% of parents between the 60-90's got married once they found out they were pregnant. Jamie and Charlie did the smart thing and made sure they were happy together before they got married and put that child in a stressful argumentative environment. So stop judging her just because she was a young mother. Not always are things as picture perfect as the media or your mind will make it; condoms break, birth control fails pregnancy is not always avoidable so leave that factor out of it as her being a young mother doesn’t always have something to do with it. There are plenty of young parents out there younger than Jamie was at the time that have 4-5 year olds now and there better parents than a lot of these middle aged pretend to be parents are. But if you really want to pull the she was young card than that is the way the police and attorneys are looking at it. She was young and she was scared, she knew that the one she cared about at the time might get in trouble for being at the hospital so when she went she lied, and upon receipt of the news about her baby girl from the police and the Dr's she immediately told the truth that she was not in fact home with the baby. Yes there should be some punishment but she is not the one who beat that little girl, and until Dr's told her otherwise she believed her boyfriend because that is what trust is about. If you’re in a committed relationship there is no reason to automatically jump the gun and assume that your boyfriend/girlfriend is lying. When she realized he was she immediately realized "oh my god, this person is a monster". They should hold her responsible for knowing about his past and still asking him to baby sit but they had been together for quite a while and he never did anything to make Jamie think he would do such a thing. Although these all sound like excuses above that is not the point I am trying to make, what I am trying to say is that what he did is far more important of a topic to waste brain cells on than the fact that a young scared mother worried about her child not knowing what to do or say initially said she was home with the child and told them what Geddings told her. The important thing is that she did tell the truth and the person who did this horrible crime is hopefully going to pay for his mistakes. Saying things such as "I wouldn't be surprised if we find out she's already pregnant by this monster" must make you feel better inside because it doesn’t have anything to do with this case or that helpless angel getting justice. Let the courts speak for the people whom can’t speak for themselves. Yes, I agree as a practicing attorney the courts do not always speak fairly or justified and people do not always get the justice owed to them, but the only thing that is going to change that is if you become a Supreme Court Justice and start throwing so of the unnecessary statutes out. I want the same thing that everyone here wants and that is justice I just hate seeing people wasting their breath or hands in this case on unnecessary verbiage and trash talking in a sense. Just for the record it is not Child Neglect getting a babysitter so that you can further your education no matter who the sitter is or what they did.

As a perfect example there was a mother in I believe TX whom had to work nights; she looked around for babysitters that were able to stay late and were qualified. This mother took a few steps and got a few referrals to have someone she thought was safe babysit, well one of the nights while she was at work this young girl who was 18 was babysitting and the child was according to her statement "being untamable" which happens just you have to be patient and relax all of us parents know how temperamental children can be. Anyways the babysitter stated she put the child in their room to calm down where the child then proceeded to tear their room apart where it then would seem that something heavy fell on the child or the child was jumping on the bed and landing on something incorrectly, well when the child got quite the babysitter assumed she fell asleep and didn’t want to risk waking the child by checking on the child so she left her in the room until the mother came home and told the mother that the child went to bed. The mother knowing her child’s ways also did not want to wake the child so she went straight to bed the next morning she woke up to find out that her child was dead and after police arrived she found out she could have saved the child’s life if she went and checked on the child before she went to bed. The baby was obviously charged, but do you think that the mother should be charged, she did not do anything wrong but refrain from looking in the bedroom. Everyone same as you and your statements above felt that she should for child neglect but not one person could explain where the neglect fell into play, she was a good mother got a what she thought was a good babysitter to go to work to provide for her child. Well long story short she wasn’t charged because neglect was not present but instead she has to live with the fact that she could have saved the Childs life for the rest of her life which in my eyes is a large punishment.
I am a chatter box I do apologize but I just want you to see that until an attorney or someone changed the laws it is going to be hard to charge Jamie or anyone else in this position. I do hope you see where I am coming from and you learn to stop speaking ill of others. -PLS REMEMBER TONE IS NOT ESTABLISHED THROUGH MESSAGES SO I DO NOT MEAN TO BE RUDE OR AGERVATED TONE JUST MAKING A POINT

Response to ADAforlife114....

First, I would encourage you to spend a few days and read some of the stories posted on this site. It won't take long but you will begin to see a pattern where so many young girls have babies mainly because they can't control themselves. If they marry the baby daddy, it usually doesn't last long and then they go through a string of boyfriends looking for more love. Some get pregnant again and more babies. Eventually they get hooked up with some guy who they love and can't stand to live without so they start letting that bf watch their baby. Most of these young guys aren't able to handle watching babies with all their needs and fussing. It's just common sense most of the time, that it's too much for them. So before you know it, the bf starts smacking, beating and shaking the baby and as we all know, can end up dead and then we are reading the story here on this site.

If these young girls will quit sleeping around and having kids before they are ready to handle the responsibility, then it won't happen. When they find the right man and are ready to settle down, then they can start that family where both parents are ready and able to raise kids.

Anyway, Jamie knew that her bf had a record of beating his own baby and a bad temper so she never should have left Addison in his care. Many mothers are charge with neglect for leaving their babies with sex offenders or men with criminal records. It may or may not happen but in my opinion, she should be held accountable. Precious Addison was her responsibility and she trusted this guy when she should not have. She needs to learn to use logic instead of love and s@x.

I don't think I'm any better than anyone else so that's ridiculous. As I said, just read all the horrible tragic stories on this website and you will become a bit frustrated with mothers that leave their babies with any old boyfriend. There are thousands of them here in this forum. Check them out. If you want some names to search, let me know and I'll give you a few.

Well said babyjustice. And I'll add that people who say the perp's a monstor and that's all there is to it and we shouldn't discuss the parents have their head in the sand. We can't go round blaming all these innocent childrens death on the bogeyman and leave it at that. We can't just punish "the monster" and that's the end of it. Most of you commenting on here belong to one side of the family or other, while we are a voice for all the dead children. In almost all of the cases, family dysfunction is at the heart of it. None of the children were born to a loving stable married couple who were financially secure. The common denominator in all the cases is that the babies were born to young, unstable people who weren't ready in any shape or form to be good parents and provide a stable life for the child. The parents rely heavily on extended family, government, friends and even acquaintances as they are not in a position to raise their children without the help. They weren't ready to be parents and shouldn't be raising a child. The child should have been adopted and raised by a couple who were able to provide a safe and stable environment.
The reason I raise points about the whole situation the child was in is because it is the fundamental reason these children are being killed. They are mostly dying at the hands of someone a parent has left their child with and a lot of the time they are people I wouldn't leave a dog with. The message we want to get across is don't get pregnant, if you do, adopt the baby out, but if you keep it anyway, literally be a single parent. You've got a child to raise and you chose that, so forget boyfriends and if you ignore that advice, at least don't bring your boyfriend into your child's life, and if you don't take that advice either, at least don't expect him to like your child as it's not his, so whatever you do don't expect him to look after your child. If you ignore all that advice and make stupid choices that aren't what's best for the baby and your child ends up killed by the bogeyman, you should be locked up in jail.
So yeah, I'm going to keep on talking about family situations that I don't know about - because I do know about the situation. I read about them here every single day. Different names - same dysfunctional lives.

I agree 150% she should be held accountable for Addison being taken from us! If after the trial is over and she is not charged in anyway you better believe there will be a petition started and I will not stop calling the DA until something is done!

Opthamologist: Eye injuries show baby girl’s death caused by violent shaking

Trial to resume next week for Henderson man accused of killing girlfriend’s daughter

Friday, Jan. 13, 2012 | 3:06 p.m.

A longtime eye doctor who examined 16-month-old Addison Weast says the girl’s injuries point to one cause.

"This is shaken baby syndrome until proven otherwise," said Marietta Nelson, a Las Vegas opthamologist who testified Friday in the child abuse murder trial of Cody Geddings, 26.

Geddings has been charged with murder and child abuse with substantial bodily harm in connection with injuries the girl suffered March 31, 2010, at Geddings' home in Henderson.

The trial, which has recessed for the weekend, will resume at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday before Clark County District Judge Douglas Herndon.

Geddings, who has pleaded not guilty, has told two stories about what happened. In his first story, he said the girl fell out of her playpen onto the floor.

He later changed his story. Geddings said what really happened was a large, heavy metal oxygen tank used in welding was on a wobbly chair in his backyard and the toddler moved the tank and it fell on her. He told police he was afraid to give that explanation at first, because he didn't think anyone would believe him because he was facing sentencing in a child abuse case involving his own son.

Geddings was caring for the girls while her mother, his girlfriend, Jaime Higgons, was at a cosmetology school. The girl died April 2, 2010, after undergoing surgery at University Medical Center.

"There was a lot of damage in both eyes, both retinal and preretinal. And preretinal hemorrhaging is very, very typical of a shaken baby," Nelson, who has been an opthamologist for 30 years, told the jury Friday. During her testimony, Nelson showed photos of the inside of the girl's eyes and used a plastic model of an eye to point out the area damaged.

Nelson is the second physician who examined the girl to testify this week that the girl suffered retinal hemorrhages. Both doctors said those eye injuries are almost exclusively caused by a rapid acceleration and deceleration of the brain inside the skull.

However, under cross examination by Geddings' public defender, Norman Reed, Nelson said that the medical community was split about whether retinal hemorrhaging is caused exclusively by shaking.

"I don't think you'll find very many young doctors in that camp you're talking about," Nelson said.

Reed told her it was evident that she was very strongly in the camp that believes it is caused by shaken baby syndrome.

"I finally came around to it, yes," Nelson said.

Medical personnel who examined Addison said the girl suffered a blow to the head and brain swelling.

Reed and Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Staudaher both asked Nelson if a blow to the head could have also caused Addison's retinal damage.

Nelson said she had never seen a case where an accidental head trauma caused the same kind of damage that shaking — or slamming a baby into something — caused.

"I have seen kids, for comparison, who have had TVs fall on their head, fallen from three-story windows onto concrete and ... run over by a car — their head actually run over by a car — without any retinal hemorrhage," Nelson said. "Retinal hemorrhage is pretty rare in accidental trauma."

Nelson also said a child with hemophilia might be more prone to retinal hemorrhaging. And a child with leukemia might also be more prone to the injury. But she said in 30 years of examinations, she had never seen that kind of damage suffered by Addison in either of those types of patients.

"That preretinal hemorrhage really does not occur with any other diagnosis," she said. "So when you see the preretinal hemorrhages, that is pretty much classic shaken baby."

Other witnesses testifying Friday included Stephanie Wilson, a crime scene analyst for Henderson Police, and Carol Garrett, manager and financial director of the Academy of Hair Design.

Wilson testified about photos and samples of evidence that she gathered from the home.

Under cross examination, Reed pointed out that she didn't gather fingerprints or DNA evidence of the large tank that Geddings claims fell on the girl, causing the injuries.

Garrett testified that Addison's mother, Jaime Higgons, was at the cosmetology school on the morning of the girl's death. Garrett had documentation that Higgons was at the school between 8 a.m. and noon.

Higgons had originally told authorities she was at home with the girl and the injury was caused by the girl falling out of a playpen onto the floor. Higgons said she was trying to cover up for Geddings and was telling authorities what he had told her happened. Gedding later told his second story about the large tank falling on the girl.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/13/opthamologist-baby-girls-death-caused-violent-shak/

A man accused in the child abuse murder trial of his girlfriend’s baby daughter stuck to his story and told Henderson police for an hour and 27 minutes that the girl’s fatal head injuries — which crushed part of her skull and caused brain swelling — were caused by falling out of her playpen onto a carpeted floor.

Then Cody Geddings eventually changed his story, explaining a large acetylene tank he had perched on a wobbly chair out in his backyard fell on top of the 16-month-old Addison Weast.

Jurors watched those events unfold today in a video of Geddings being interviewed by Henderson detectives nearly 10 hours after the girl was injured on March 31, 2010, at Geddings' home in Henderson.

Geddings’ child abuse murder trial was continuing this afternoon before Clark County District Judge Douglas Herndon. The 26-year-old has been charged with murder and child abuse with substantial bodily harm in the girl's death.

During the video played before the jurors, Geddings eventually told officers that he made up the first story and told it to his girlfriend, Jaime Higgons, in order to protect himself because he had been awaiting a child abuse sentencing involving his own son.

He said he didn’t call for 911 emergency help “because I freaked out.”

Instead, he told officers that he pulled Addison’s body out from under the heavy acetylene tank, brought her into the living room and laid her on the floor near the playpen, then eventually laid her on his bed. He said she had become rigid and was having seizures.

He told officers that he then called the girl’s mother, rather than call 911. He said he told his girlfriend that her daughter fell out of the crib, a story that she relayed to authorities, only changing it to say that she had been at home at the time the girl was injured.

Detectives on the video told Geddings that doctors treating the girl had explained to them that the injury was caused by a crushing blow to the head. But Geddings stayed with the playpen fall story until they appeared to convince him that it was impossible for the girl to receive such injuries by such a short fall onto a carpeted floor.

In testimony last week, two physicians testified that they thought the girl’s eye injuries that were discovered were caused by “shaken baby syndrome.” However, one physician, Dr. Gary Telgenhoff of the Clark County Coroner’s office, testified that a blow from the large falling tank could have resulted in such injuries to the girl.

Higgons was called to the stand briefly this morning by prosecutors to go explain about a damaged door jamb inside of Geddings home. The jury was shown a photo of the door jamb a year before, which showed it was undamaged, and a photo taken by a crime scene investigator, which showed the strike plate was missing, along with some of the wood on the door.

Higgons said she recalled the door being damaged, but she didn’t think it had been damaged that much.

A UNLV physics professor is expected to testify for the defense this afternoon.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/17/boyfriend-tells-police-he-freaked-out-when-baby-gi/

UNLV physics prof: Falling tank could have caused fatal injury to 16-month-old girl

Testimony to continue today in trial of Henderson man accused of killing girlfriend’s baby daughter


By Dave Toplikar (contact)

Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012 | 9:30 a.m.

A UNLV physics professor was expected to continue to demonstrate today to a Clark County jury how a large metal oxygen tank could have fallen on and fatally injured 16-month-old Addison Weast in March 2010 in a Henderson back yard.

The testimony of the professor, John Farley, lasted late into the afternoon Tuesday in the child abuse murder trial of Cody Geddings, 26, who is accused of killing the baby daughter of his girlfriend, Jaime Higgons, on March 31, 2010. Testimony is expected to resume at 1:30 p.m.

Geddings been charged with murder and child abuse with substantial bodily harm in the girl's death.

Prosecutors have been trying to show, bringing several doctors to the stand, that the baby’s injuries were caused by being shaken violently or slammed into something. They said retinal damage suffered by the baby points to “shaken baby syndrome.”

However, a physician from the coroner’s office said that a blow to the head, such as the accident in the backyard claimed by the defendant, could have been the cause.

And the defense attorneys, public defenders Shana Bachman and Norman Reed, have been trying to convince the jury that it was an accident — that the toddler accidently knocked over a 145-pound steel oxygen tank used in welding that Geddings had temporarily placed on a wobbly chair in his back yard.

Complicating the trial has been Geddings’ admission that he told police he tried to cover up the accident and initially told both the girl’s mother and police that Addison fell out of her playpen onto the floor and then went into seizures.

Jurors watched a video Tuesday afternoon that showed Geddings sticking to that story for an hour and 27 minutes as police questioned him until he finally gave his second story — that the accident happened in the back yard. He told authorities that he “freaked out” and tried to cover up the accident because he faced a different child abuse sentencing and didn’t think anyone would believe him.

However, during testimony on Tuesday, one of the detectives who interviewed him said they checked in the back yard, saw the oxygen tank and the chair that Geddings said it fell from and only took photos of it as it was strapped onto a dolly.

In the video shown of his interview by officers, Geddings told them that after the girl’s mother took her to the hospital, he strapped the heavy tank back onto its dolly — but told them they would find DNA from the girl on the tank.

Under cross examination, the detective said they didn’t check the tank for Addison’s DNA, didn’t check the ground to see if there was an indentation left by the fall or didn’t try to do a re-enactment. The detective indicated they didn’t believe the second story, because Geddings had already told them he made up the first story.

During testimony on Tuesday, Farley, the physics professor, said said he did 11 re-enactments at the scene with public defenders Norman Reed and Shana Bachman present in which they placed the heavy tank on a chair and let it fall onto the head of a crash dummy that was the same size as the girl. The crash dummy had been outfitted with equipment that would measure the velocity of the impact, so that it could be rated on a scale used by the auto industry for testing injuries in crashes.

Farley testified that the results showed that in five of the 11 trials, the crash dummy’s head received major injuries.

Under cross examination, Farley admitted to Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Staudaher that they did not use the same kind of swivel chair in the recreation that was in the backyard. Staudaher also tried to get him to lift the metal cylinder, but Farley could not place it on a chair in the courtroom and said that Reed, the public defender, handled that part of the experiment.

Staudaher then requested that all of the photos and videos of the recreation experiments be shown to the jury. They are expected to see them this afternoon.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/18/unlv-prof-tank-could-have-caused-fatal-injury-16-m/

Child abuse murder case involving 16-month-old Henderson girl goes to jury
Closing arguments took place Thursday in week-long trial for Cody Geddings

By Dave Toplikar (contact)
Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 | 9:04 a.m.

After listening to testimony for more than a week, a Clark County District Court jury was to begin deliberating this morning in the child abuse murder trial of a Henderson man accused of killing his girlfriend’s 16-month-old daughter in 2010.

Jurors returned at 9:30 a.m. today to sift through the evidence in the trial of Cody Geddings, 26, who has been accused in the death of Addison Weast on March 31, 2010, in his home in Henderson.

Prosecutors are seeking a first-degree murder by child abuse conviction in the case, saying the girl’s severe head injuries and medical testimony about the nature of the injuries convinces them that Geddings violently shook her and slammed into something.

Geddings’ public defenders are asking jurors to believe Geddings’ story — that a large oxygen tank used in acetylene welding that was in his backyard fell on top of the girl and caused the injuries that led to her death two days later.

Prosecutors have also charged Geddings with a felony count of child neglect resulting in substantial bodily harm. They that he failed to call for 911 emergency medical help for the girl, and also gave both the girl’s mother and police a story that the girl was injured by falling out of a playpen.

Late Thursday afternoon, Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Staudaher went over the evidence presented in the trial point by point. Staudaher showed a timeline of events that happened that day, partially based on telephone records of calls made by Geddings, and concluded that Geddings’ story about the accident was false.

He said that Geddings claimed that after the girl’s mother, Jaime Higgons, took Addison to the hospital, Geddings covered up the accident. Geddings claimed he put the heavy tank back onto the dolly, strapped it in and hooked the gauges back up to it.

However, Staudaher said, phone records indicate that Geddings was making several telephone calls during the time period while he claims he was restoring the tank to its normal position.

Staudaher told the jury the evidence showed there was an impact injury to the side of Addison's head, there was was retinal hemorrhaging caused by rapid acceleration and deceleration, which "is completely inconsistent with any statement given about the injury by the defendant."

"The only true reasonable explanation ... in this case is that Cody Geddings perpetrated child abuse against Addison Weast," Staudaher said. "And he did so before noon. And he could have done something about it afterwards and did not."

Staudaher also told the jury that if they believe Geddings story completely, then they still need to find him guilty of second-degree murder by child neglect for allowing her to be in a dangerous situation where the tank could fall on her.

Staudaher had a small doll and picked it up as he talked to the jurors and demonstrated what he thought could have caused the injuries found by the physicians, first shaking the doll and then slamming the doll's head down onto a railing.

"Whatever it was, he hit her head against something," Staudaher said. "That is an abusive scenario."

Norman Reed, one of Geddings' public defenders told jurors it was simply a case of Geddings trying to cover up an accident. Geddings claims to have done so because he already had a sentencing pending for pleading guilty to child abuse charge involving his own son.

"This is a tragedy," Reed told the jurors. "Cody Geddings is not a child abuser. He is not a murderer."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/20/child-abuse-murder-case-goes-jury/

I hope they find that monster Cody Geddings GUILTY AS CHARGED!

Man convicted of 2nd-degree murder in death of girlfriend’s baby daughter

Prosecutor says defendant could face prison term of 10 years to life

By Dave Toplikar (contact)

Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 | 2:36 p.m.

Cody Geddings is guilty of second-degree murder by child neglect in the 2010 slaying of Addison Weast, his girlfriend’s 16-month-old daughter, a Clark County District Court jury ruled today.

After deliberating for about four hours, the jury returned its verdict early this afternoon in the trial, which began early last week.

Geddings, 26, who had claimed that the girl was injured by a large oxygen tank falling on her head, was immediately handcuffed by court marshals and remanded to the Clark County Detention Center, where he will be held without bail awaiting sentencing.

Judge Douglas Herndon set sentencing for 9 a.m. April 17.

The jury also found Geddings guilty of a felony count of child neglect with substantial bodily harm for not trying to immediately get medical aid for the girl after she was injured at his home on March 31, 2010.

Following the verdict, Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Staudaher said prosecutors had been hoping to convince the jury that Geddings was guilty of first-degree murder by child abuse.

“It’s not what we wanted, obviously. We got close,” Staudaher said a few minutes after the verdict.

Staudaher said Geddings could end up getting a sentence ranging from 10 years to life. A first-degree murder conviction could have brought a prison term from 20 years to life, Staudaher said.

For the child neglect with substantial bodily harm charge, Geddings could receive a term of from 10 to 20 years, Staudaher said.

The jury’s verdict indicates it decided there was a reasonable doubt that Geddings shook the child violently and slammed her head into something, which is the scenario that Staudaher had told them the medical evidence showed.

Staudaher had told jurors Thursday that if they completely believed Geddings’ story about an oxygen tank falling on the girl’s head in the back yard, they needed to convict him of second-degree murder. That was because Geddings had allowed the girl to go into a dangerous place, he told them.

Throughout the trial, Geddings’ public defender, Norman Reed, had told the jury that the girl’s injuries, which included brain swelling and retinal hemorrhaging, were caused when she knocked over a large oxygen tank Geddings claims to have temporarily placed in a wobbly chair in his back yard.

Earlier this week, jurors watched a lengthy video of Geddings in an interview with police before he was arrested.

In the interview, Henderson Police detectives told Geddings over and over that the injuries the girl suffered could not have happened the way he described to both his girlfriend and police. In his initial story, Geddings had told his girlfriend, Jaime Higgons, that her daughter had fallen out of a playpen.

After staying with that story for an hour and 27 minutes and police telling him there must have been some kind of an accident, Geddings told them about the oxygen tank in the back yard.

He claimed he had "freaked out" and tried to cover up the accident because he was afraid of going to jail because he was awaiting sentencing on a misdemeanor child endangerment charge involving his own son.

Prosecutors said police never believed Geddings' second story, saying he came up with that to explain the severity of the blow to the girl's head.

Earlier this week, the defense brought in John Farley, a UNLV physics professor, to testify. Farley said he had done experiments with the 145-pound oxygen tank, letting it fall onto a crash test dummy that had been rigged to measure the velocity of the impact. Farley said that his conclusions were that the tank could have provided enough force to cause a fatal head injury.


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/20/man-convicted-second-degree-murder-death-girlfrien/

Disappointed that Cory wasn't convicted of murder one. There is no way a baby probably weighing only about 20 lbs. could knock over a 300 lb. tank. That's just BS. I hope the judge sentences him to the max.