Father testifies in ‘shaken baby’ homicide trial

CONWAY — Miles Lee Ferguson took the stand to defend himself Tuesday against accusations he killed his 5-week-old daughter. Ferguson, 27, is charged with homicide by child abuse in her death.  Police said Mylee was beaten at a home near Arcadian Shores in 2007 while the Fergusons vacationed in Myrtle Beach from Ohio. Ferguson claims his baby was unresponsive and he shook her to revive her.

“Why did you do what you did?” defense attorney Morgan Martin asked Ferguson.

“I was trying to help my baby breathe ... I would never hurt my baby,” Ferguson replied crying.  Martin also brought to the stand Mildred Wescoe, who testified she rushed to assist Ferguson after hearing him cry for help and yelling out for his wife. “When the baby let out a breath, it was a noise that’s very hard to describe, a sound that’s nothing like I’ve heard coming from a child,” Wescoe said.

Before Ferguson and Wescoe took the stand, and even before the jury was brought in Tuesday morning, Martin told the court the defense will present family photographs of Ferguson and his wife, Ashlee Ferguson, interacting with Mylee as a way to show his client, who now has a 17 month-old-daughter, is a good, loving father.

But prosecutors argued it wouldn’t be fair to present those photographs because those could sway the jury and impact the outcome of the trial.

Fifteenth Circuit Court Judge Ben Culbertson, however, denied the state’s request for that motion because prosecutors were allowed to present autopsy photos of Mylee during the evidence presentation portion of the trial. Culbertson said it’s fair, then, to allow the defense to display family photos of the Fergusons with their baby to the jury.

Fergusons’s defense team presented several of his family and friends including his wife as witnesses to the jury Tuesday.

“He is a great man,” said Ashlee Ferguson’s, “no one could ask for a better husband than him.”  During the state’s cross examination, prosecutors kept asking Ferguson if he shook his baby and Ferguson became agitated and replied, “ I would never shake my baby violently no one should ever shake a baby… ever.”

15th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Candice Lively asked Ferguson using a doll to even describe exactly what happened the day he realized that something was wrong with his baby.

During his opening statements Nov. 9, Martin asked Ferguson to stand up. Ferguson sobbed heavily while his family and friends sat in the small courtroom and cried in the background.

“My client is a good and decent man who had no intention to harm that baby that he loved,” Martin said. “This is not a crime if there was absolutely no motive for this young man.”

“The victim here is a child who cannot defend herself,” Lively told the jury during proceedings Nov. 10. “The medical evidence is going to make you believe that the defendant is responsible for this dead child, (that) this was not premeditated at all.” Prosecutors rested their case Friday.

Horry County Police Investigator Robert David Deal Jr. took the stand Thursday explaining his investigation of the case.  The jury looked at several photographs Deal had taken inside the hotel room where the Fergusons stayed and where investigators said the crime occurred back 2007.

Dr. Ronald Teed, an ophthalmologist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, also took the stand to describe the type of injuries he examined in the back of Myless’ right eye.

When Mylee’s graphic autopsy photos were shown in court last week, Ferguson did his best to avoid looking at them. He got up and moved so he didn’t see them as they were being presented to the jury by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Caplan. Caplan testified Mylee suffered a severed brain injury because of a lack of blood and oxygen flow.

The jury also listened to a taped interview between Ferguson and investigators that were handling the case.
In the interview, Ferguson described what happened July 29, 2007: “I was just shaking her I was just looking at her. I go ‘Mylee’ ... I was yelling ... I mean that’s my daughter ... and I just shook her ... I was not slamming her ... I was not slamming her by no means, I just shook her and when nothing happened I put her right here (in my lap) and started breathing in her mouth.”

Ferguson, who was 24 at the time of Mylee’s death, originally was charged with assault and battery with the intent to kill in August 2007. But those charges were elevated after the investigation began.

Mylee was taken to MUSC for treatment, but died there Aug. 2, 2007. Horry County Coroner Robert Edge said autopsy results showed she died of a closed head injury.

Ferguson’s bond was set Aug. 6, 2007, at $50,000 and he was ordered not to leave the state of Ohio if he posted bond out. The only exceptions to that order were if he had a court appearance in South Carolina or needed to meet with his lawyer.  In December 2007, a grand jury indicted Ferguson on a count of homicide by child abuse.  Dozens of supporters have lined up since the trial started Nov. 9 outside the Horry County Courthouse in Conway, wearing blue T-shirts, wrists bands and holding signs that read “I support Miles Lee Ferguson.” Those supporters are not allowed to wear any of those things inside the courthouse. They also have refused to speak to the media.

A few protestors who said they want justice for Mylee also stood outside the courthouse holding color printed pictures of the baby.

“When you look at the facts of the case, and I’m not going to go into detail on all of that, we are talking about a 5-week-old baby, how could she have done that to her self?” child advocate Kelly Mason asked. “What possibly could be the reason? It’s just not possible if you educate yourself on children and child development and shaken baby syndrome and the kinds of injuries that it caused.

“This is what we are looking at. This child needs people to stand up for her. Kids need someone to talk for them. This baby is 5 weeks-old, and no longer with us. She has no voice, and unfortunately only us to stand for her today,” Mason said.

If convicted, Ferguson faces life in person.  Prosecutors are expected to present rebuttal witness Wednesday.

According to Ferguson’s attorneys closing arguments are expected to happen as the case may go to the jury Wednesday.