Griffin case: Griffin murder, child abuse trial

April 17, 2009

Balto. Co. couple to be sentenced in son's death

There was little reason to suspect that something terrible - the withering abuse and neglect of a child - was happening behind the walls of the Griffin family's rented brick townhouse in Rodgers Forge.

February 26, 2009

Couple guilty in tot's death

A couple accused of beating and starving their son were found guilty yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court of second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse.

February 25, 2009

Father testifies he was too busy to notice son's neglect

Taking the witness stand to defend himself against charges of abuse and murder in the death of his young son, John J. Griffin said yesterday he had been too busy with work to notice the boy's worsening condition, and that he had not seen any wounds on the child before taking him to the hospital, where a doctor pronounced him dead.

February 24, 2009

Autopsy shows extensive trauma in murder, child abuse case

As the pathologist checked the list of injuries in his autopsy report of a Rodgers Forge toddler, he kept repeating the same phrase: blunt-force trauma.

February 21, 2009

Doctor says earlier hospital visit might have saved toddler

Had Andrew Patrick Griffin been taken to the hospital even a few hours earlier, doctors could likely have saved his life, a pediatrics expert testified yesterday at the Baltimore County murder trial of the toddler's parents.

February 20, 2009

Mother accused of murder 'didn't see' son's injuries

Andrew Griffin looked a little skinny but was otherwise fine. Or maybe he wasn't. His mother couldn't be sure.

February 19, 2009

'I did not murder my son,' accused man says

A man whose severely malnourished son, his body marked by bruises and bloody abrasions, was declared dead at a Towson hospital in 2007 became defensive and combative a few hours later when a detective suggested that the boy's death amounted to homicide.

February 18, 2009

Murder trial begins for Rodgers Forge couple accused of killing son

The photographs beamed onto a courtroom screen showed a scrawny, emaciated toddler, his body covered in bruises and abrasions, arms and legs limp, eyes half-closed, mouth agape.

October 19, 2008

Sun exclusive

Mother: 'I didn't kill this child'

She joked that before he died, her nearly 3-year-old son weighed less than her infant daughter. She offered no explanation for the blood that police found on the bedroom walls and ceiling or on the bassinet in which the boy often slept -- other than the bloody noses that she said she and her children suffered in the dry winter air. And she said she and her husband worried whenever company came to their Rodgers Forge home that they would be accused of starving their children.

September 12, 2008

Judge OKs warrant use in child starvation case

A Baltimore County judge hearing the case of the Rodgers Forge couple charged with murder in the starvation death of their 2-year-old son ruled yesterday that a police search warrant for the family's home was valid.

August 22, 2008

Evidence disputed in boy's starvation death

A Baltimore County judge is considering tossing out evidence seized by police in the search of the Rodgers Forge home of a couple charged with murder in the starvation death of their 2-year-old son.

May 2, 2008

Abuse case called 'torture'

A Baltimore County prosecutor handling the murder cases against a Rodgers Forge couple charged in the starvation death of their 2-year-old son said yesterday that the abuse inflicted by the parents was "tantamount to torture" and that investigators are looking into the possibility that another of the couple's children was also abused.

April 15, 2008