A 33-year-old Washington-area man accused of shaking one of his infant twin daughters to death in Columbia 2 1/2 years ago pleaded guilty yesterday to manslaughter and faces a possible six-year prison term.
Rodney C. Rozier's plea was part of an agreement with prosecutors, who said yesterday that they plan to cap their request for prison time at six years - manslaughter carries a maximum 10-year penalty - and to drop the more serious charge of second-degree murder, as well as three related charges, at his sentencing Feb. 6.
"This has been a difficult decision for Mr. Rozier to make," Assistant Public Defender Janette DeBoissiere, who represents the Capitol Heights man, told Howard Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney.
The plea also brings to a close a complicated case that took prosecutors nearly two years to bring before a grand jury and which DeBoissiere said would have been a "battle of the experts" if it had gone to trial.
Rozier, who now lives with his sister in the 6400 block of Wilburn Drive, was one of two adults in the family's Flowerstock Row home in Columbia on April 12, 2000, when prosecutors say the fatal injuries against then 9-day-old Raven Rozier were inflicted.
While Rozier was at work that day - his first day back since the April 3 birth of Raven and her twin sister, Racine - his live-in girlfriend, Bridgette Thomas, stayed at home to care for the babies with her mother's help, prosecutor Kim Oldham said.
Thomas' mother left about 4:45 p.m., and when Rozier returned home about two hours later, Thomas took Racine with her into the bedroom and lay down to take a nap, leaving Raven with Rozier, Oldham said.
Rozier told investigators that he put the little girl on the couch and played video games with Thomas' 5-year-old son while Raven slept, Oldham said.
When the baby woke he fixed her a bottle, and when she would not take it, he took her to Thomas, Oldham said.
Thomas later told police that she heard Raven crying about 11:30 p.m., and when Rozier brought the baby to her, Raven's eyes were closed and she was still, only moving her right arm, Oldham said.
Thomas ran out of the apartment to find a phone to call 911 while Rozier performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the baby, the prosecutor said.
Raven was taken to Howard County General Hospital, where she had three seizures, and later to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was placed on a respirator. She died two days later.
An autopsy showed that Raven had bleeding on her brain and spinal cord, hemorrhages in her eyes, 12 rib fractures and a broken leg, Oldham said.
A child-abuse expert attributed the injuries to shaking or impact, and said the trauma would have occurred shortly before the symptoms started, the prosecutor said.
Rozier is free on $50,000 bond.