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Cook County reopens 11 SIDS cases; charges likelyAPC News ServiceA former area woman whose six children died under mysterious circumstances between 1972 and 1987 will likely soon be indicted for murder in their deaths, the woman’s attorney said Friday.Attorney Rick Halprin said he expected charges to be filed in Cook County against Deborah Ann' Gedzius, 42, a former resident of Alsip, Burbank, and Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood who now lives in Henderson, Nev.Halprin said Cook County state’s attorney investigators were in Nevada this summer to interview Gedzius, who now goes by the last name of her husband, Jaihes Fornuto, a former Chicago police officer. More than 50 subpoenas have been issued in the case, Halprin said.The deaths of four of Gedzius’ children were among 10 infant deaths once attributed to sudden infant death syndrome that were reclassified Friday as “undetermined” by the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The deaths of Gedzius’ other two babies hadbeen listed previously as undetermined.Chief Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue said he ordered the reclassification of the 10 deaths'and an 11th ruled as heat stroke after review of the cases and recent scientific rejection of a theory that more than one SIDS death can occur in a family.SIDS, commonly known as cribdeath, mysteriously claims theliv£s of thousands of infants every year. Science has never been able to explain why apparently healthy babies suddenly die in their sleep, Donoghue said.“We feel that ‘undetermined’ shduld be a red flag. It’s less than a clean bill of health,” he said. “We feel if you have more than one baby die you should get more investigation, more scrutiny. We’re not willing to attribute these to natural causes.”Chicago police and CookCounty prosecutors have long suspected foul play in the deaths of Gedzius’ children. Robert Benjamin, a spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office, declined to comment Friday on whether a grand jury would indict Gedzius soon.“The deaths of her six children have always been considered an open case by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office,” Benjamin said. “We are continuing to look into this matter.”In 1990, the medical examiner’s office came under fire forfailing to tie Gedzius to the deaths of the six children. Theconnection apparently took years to establish because the children had different surnames and died in different jurisdictions.Under heavy criticism of his handling of the cases, former Chief Medical Examiner Robert Stein in February 1990 asked his deputy, Mary Jumbelic, to review the children’s deaths. Jumbelic concluded that all six children died from suffocation, but Stein refused to officially change the cause of death to murder. Stein has since died.Donoghue said he took Jumbe-lic’s review of the six deaths into consideration in changing the cause of death, but he and other pathologists determined there was not enough medical evidence to classify them as homicides.“We’re held to a very high standard to prove a homicide case, and that’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “I would say that in none of these cases do we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a homicide was committed.”At the time police began probing the deaths of Gedzius’ children, they also renewed an investigation into the murder of her former husband, Delos Gedzius, who was found shot to death in his Merrionette Park apartment on April 25, 1989. That murder remains unsolved.Donoghue’s decision Friday to change the cause of death in the 11 cases comes as the prestigious medical journal Pediatrics plans next week to publish an apology for publishing a 1972 study that lent credence to a genetic basisfor SIDS.“I have decided to take action based on the apology expected in Pediatrics,” Donoghue said. “It’s a very prestigious medical journal, and we’ve always tried to reflect the thought of those in the scientific community.”The study led pathologists and law enforcement officials to viewmultiple SIDS deaths as a tragedy rather than a possible crime, Donoghue said.“This article had a very powerful effect on the scientific community,” he said. “The last time the Gedzius case was reviewed, that article was a significant factor in the decision not to prosecute.”The medical examiner’s office is continuing to review its multiple SIDS cases. Donoghue said he expects at least 10 more SIDS deaths to be reclassified as undetermined.The deaths now considered “undetermined” by the medicalexaminer:The deaths of four ofGedzius’ children. They includethe September 1972 death of 5-month-old Denise Booe who was found dead in the South Side home of one of Gedzius’ friends;the May 1975 death of 4-month-old Jenifer Narbone in Burbank; the December 1976 death of 6-week-old Barbara Jean Narbone in Burbank; and the September 1980 death of 1-year-old Jason Gedzius in Alsip.The deaths of two of her other children had been previously ruled as undetermined — theFebruary 1984 death of 2-year-old Delos Gedzius Jr., and the March 1987 death of 10-week-old Daniel Gedzius, both in Mount Greenwood.■ The deaths of two children of Jean Halsell in Chicago. They include the November 1977death of 11-month-old SharmainHalsell in the 13000 block of South Ellis Avenue and the May 1978 death of 4-month-old Genteel Halsell in the 6200 block of South Union Avenue.The January 1982 death of a third child, Clarence Halsell, age 3 months, in the 7100 block of South Yale Street was ruled earlier as undetermined.■ The deaths of three children of Antoinette Ware. They include the July 1986 death of Jerry Wilkerson, age 11 months, in the 14600 block of South Spaulding Avenue in Dixmoor, which was ruled as due to heat stroke; and the September 1987 deaths of 8-month-old twins Amanda and Jaime Hawkins in Chicago’s Beverly community.■ The deaths of two children of Grealondia Woodland. They include the September 1988 death of 3-month-old Kenneth Maddox in the 300 block of South Cicero Avenue and the December1989 death of 3-month-old Rolanda Prude at the same address. The death of a third child, 6-month-old Ashland Woodland, in December 1991 at the same location was ruled as undetermined after the initial autopsy.Halsell, Ware and Woodland now reside in the Minneapolis, Minn., area. Donoghue said another factor in his reclassifying the cases was the reluctance of Minnesota authorities to remove the remaining children from the homes of Halsell, Ware and Woodland because Cook County had ruled their children’s deaths as resulting from SIDS.In light of the new medical findings, Donoghue said the medical examiner’s office has adopted a policy to automatically reclassify multiple SIDS deaths in a family as undetermined.There are about 200 SIDS cases in Cook County every year.
Newspaper Details
Orland Park Star
Orland Park, Illinois, US
Sun, Sep 28, 1997
Page 10
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