A verdict has been reached in the Jessica Santiago trial, a Rochester
mother accused of smothering her 23-month old son, Lashawn Dunbar, in May of
2006 in the family’s Weld St.
apartment.
After nearly 8 hours of deliberations, a jury has found
Jessica Santiago guilty of murder.
The jury was allowed to consider lesser charges but, that's
what it ultimately convicted her of.
Police claim Santiago
smothered her child, and then waited some 19 hours to summon help when her 8
year old daughter discovered the boy to be unresponsive the following
day. The Monroe County Medical Examiner testified under oath that while
an autopsy confirms an approximate time of death to match the allegations, she
could not with certainty say the child was suffocated and thus continued
to characterize the cause of death as "uncertain."
Confronted by police four months after Lashawn's suspicious
death, Santiago allegedly admitted
to police she smothered the child when he threw a tantrum and wouldn't stop
screaming and crying. She later recanted the alleged confession before a
Monroe County Grand Jury.
Santiago is
expected to be sentenced on October 3,
2007.
