Jason Jay Midyette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In February of 2006, Jane Bowers had planned on babysitting her grandson while her daughter went to a postpartum checkup. There was a mix up in the date and Jason was left with his father instead. On February 24, 2006, Jason was rushed to the hospital with seizure symptoms and he was also vomiting. These symptoms had been apparently going on since the day of the appointment. A week later, on March 3, 2006, Jason was only 76 days old when he died from a massive skull fracture and traumatic brain injuries. While Jason was in the hospital, his mother and father did not go to his bedside to comfort him or hold his hands and they kept changing their stories about the progression of the baby's illness in the days before he died.  Boulder County Prosecutor Collette Cribari said that Jason died a broken baby:  "He lived for 76 days filled with pain and misery. He lived through 76 days of repeated broken bones and head injuries." 

 

Jason's ribs, clavicle and left arm were fractured and had already started to heal.  Family members and friend noticed bruising on Jason’s head, but Midyette claimed he had accidentally hit his son's head on a chair while going to answer his telephone. Jason had more than 30 broken bones, some of them healing when he died. The most recent injury, a skull fracture, is what ultimately killed him. Jason's frenulum, the membrane that attaches the gums to the lips was torn, which is frequently a sign of child abuse from someone shoving a bottle or pacifier into a baby's mouth. Alex Midyette contends that his son was not abused but rather suffered from a rare medical condition.

 

Jason's mother, Molly, was convicted of child abuse for not seeking help for the ailing child and was sentenced last year to 16 years in prison. On February 18, 2009, Alex Midyette was found guilty of criminally negligent child abuse, a lesser charge than his original. Alex Midyette was sentenced to ONLY 16 years for what he did to his son.