By Jeffrey Felshman
Ron was found guilty of murdering his infant son, Paul, and then donating Paul’s organs to cover up the crime. (I wrote about the case for the Reader in the summer of 1995.) Paul had died while in Ron’s care in early December 1991, an apparent victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Paul’s heart ended up saving the life of Quinn Kyles, commonly known as Baby Quinn, who was born with a defective heart and desperately needed a transplant. Baby Quinn had been the subject of much media attention. After they donated Paul’s heart, Ron and his second wife, Angela, Paul’s mother, were interviewed on Channel Five.
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An autopsy showed no signs of foul play, and the medical examiner signed off on SIDS as the cause of death. An investigation by the Department of Children and Family Services backed up Ron’s account, but the police then interviewed witnesses who thought Ron had something to hide. In addition to Zucker, there was another doctor–a pediatrician who also didn’t like the way Ron acted; she had seen him laughing while doing laundry at a laundromat. Ron’s first wife, Vivinia, didn’t like Ron period; she told police he had abused one of their children. In April 1992 Ron was brought to the police station, where detectives interrogated him for a few hours and then turned him over to an assistant state’s attorney to take a statement.
Baby Quinn was alive and well, with Paul’s heart beating in his growing body, when Ron went to trial in August 1994. Quinn McGuire sat in the courtroom. She watched the police detective admit that he didn’t take notes when Ron was interviewed. She watched Dr. Zucker explain that his suspicions were first raised because Ron was talking about organ donation from the moment he’d entered the hospital; later she learned Zucker hadn’t met Ron until three days after Paul was admitted. She watched Ron’s first wife break down and cry on the stand. Vivinia told the jury she knew Ron had abused their son even though the doctor who’d examined the child after an accident hadn’t reported or suspected abuse. Quinn watched the prosecutor tell the jury about Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a psychological disorder in which a person will harm others in order to get attention. But though Paul had been to a doctor several times, it was Angela, not Ron, who had always taken him in. Quinn watched as the judge refused to instruct the jury on a charge of manslaughter. If the jurors thought Ron was even a little guilty, he could only be convicted of murder. She watched the jury return a guilty verdict.
Ron explained that he’d thought it all through. He’d plead guilty to a lesser charge–aggravated assault against a child–and get his sentence cut in half. With good behavior and credit for the three and a half years he had already served, he figured he’d be in prison for another five. He was only 32–he’d still be a young man when he got out. She’d seen the first trial; did she think he should take another chance? He could wind up getting an even stiffer sentence.
“You’ll be dead,” her mother answered. “What do you care?”
She found the dress and promptly lost a button.
