BACKGROUNDER: "Russell Silverstein, co-President of AIDWYC, said today“Maria Shepherd has suffered immeasurably due to her wrongful conviction and deserves to have her name cleared by the Ontario Court of Appeal today.  Sadly, she is not the only person to have suffered at the hands of Dr. Smith.” On the late afternoon of Tuesday, April 9, 1991, Kasandra Shepherd began vomiting in her bedroom, was gasping for air and went into a coma.  She was taken to the Hospital for Sick Kids (H.S.C) and two days later was taken off life support and died. Dr. Charles Smith was then the pediatric pathologist at H.S.C. He conducted Kasandra’s autopsy at the H.S.C. and told the police that Kasandra had died as a result of abuse, involving a blow or blows to the head, leaving a watch-shaped mark under her scalp. On April 24, 1991, Maria Shepherd, 21 years old at the time, was charged with manslaughter in Kasandra’s death. At the time of her trial in 1992, Maria had three children of her own – Jordan (then 6 years old), Natasha (2) and Chelsea (8 months). Under extreme pressure and consumed by concern that if she continued to claim innocence the Children’s Aid Society would take away her three children from her,  Maria pleaded guilty mid-trial to manslaughter.  On October 22, 1992, she was sentenced to imprisonment for two years less a day.  She was pregnant at the time with her fourth child and, on March 31, 1993, five months into her prison sentence, she gave birth to Chanel in prison. She was released on parole on June 21, 1993. Upon her release, she was reunited with Jordan, Natasha, Chelsea and Chanel. In 2007, after a review of Charles Smith’s work, concerns arose that Kasandra was not a homicide victim at all, but had died of natural causes. If so, Maria Shepherd had been convicted of a crime that never happened. Ms. Shepherd was contacted by AIDWYC and told of these developments.  She had continued to strongly assert her innocence and she asked AIDWYC to investigate and, if possible, reopen Kasandra’s case.   AIDWYC had the case reviewed by Dr. Simon Avis, a forensic pathologist from St. John’s Newfoundland, Dr. David Ramsay, a forensic neuropathologist from London, and Dr. Patrick Barnes, a forensic radiologist from Stanford University, California. All agreed that Dr. Smith’s findings were wrong and he had wrongly attributed Kasandra’s death to homicide. Experts who have looked at the case have come to some damning conclusions about Dr. Smith’s work. They refer to his opinions as “unreliable in the extreme”, “inappropriate and misleading” and “pseudo-scientific. They conclude that the case of Kasandra’s death could not be determined but it could have resulted from a pre-existing epileptic condition, or from a mild head injury resulting from a fall that became fatal.  Today, Maria Shepherd is asking the Court of Appeal to consider the new evidence, and set aside her guilty plea and acquit her of the manslaughter of Kasandra. Her request is supported by the Attorney General of Ontario.... Maria’s case is another deplorable example of unsustainable assertions made by a seemingly infallible expert witness. There were other repercussions from her case. Kasandra’s family doctor was charged with obstruction of justice but, fortunately, the charge was dismissed. A lengthy Inquest was held, with much media attention and public scrutiny, and resulted in 73 recommendations to several government agencies on the basis that “concrete changes have to be done to our society’s outlook on child abuse.” Ms. Shepherd will be in the courtroom and will speak outside the court to the press afterward. She said today:  “The best thing for all these 25 years is that my family – my husband, Ashley, who was Kasandra’s father, my son Jordan (now 29), my daughter Natasha (26), Chelsea (25) and Chanel (22) – have supported me. They will all be with me at the appeal today. These have been painful years for us all. Kasandra was an important and special member of our family. We loved her. We believe that she is with us today and that she can now finally rest in peace.”AIDWYC’S senior counsel, James Lockyer, will be representing Maria Shepherd in the Court of Appeal."

See also Wendy Gillis's very fine, comprehensive story published earlier today by the Toronto Star under the heading 'Woman implicated by Charles Smith's flawed evidence hopes for closure and peace,' complete with summaries of other acquittals resulting from flawed opinions of Charles Smith, a timeline, and a video. "Photographs of young Kasandra are cherished by the Shepherd family, but you won’t find any on display in their Brampton home. The images of the toddler come out just twice a year, a private indulgence reserved for Kasandra’s birthday in mid-December, then Christmas, when the 3-year-old known as KC looks out from an ornament hung on the tree. Come January the photos are once again tucked away, where they can’t prompt painful questions from those who don’t know the family’s tragedy — one that was only beginning on the spring day in 1991 when Kasandra died. Nearly 25 years after she was convicted of manslaughter in the death of her stepdaughter, Maria Shepherd hopes the injustice that resulted from that tragedy will finally be undone inside Ontario’s Court of Appeal this week. “I’m hoping and I’m praying,” Shepherd said in an emotional recent interview, “that the truth will be out and we will be free.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/02/28/woman-implicated-by-charles-smiths-flawed-evidence-hopes-for-closure-and-peace.html


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 
 
Dear Reader.

Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: 
 
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
 
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html

Harold Levy: Publisher;