Jury deliberates Parish’s fate in child’s death

Erica D. Johnson

Monday, May 12, 2003 | 9:16 a.m.

A prosecutor on Friday asked jurors to make former Nellis Air Force Base Airman Brandon Parish pay in the beating death of his ex-girlfriend's infant daughter six years ago.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Luzaich in her closing argument laid out a laundry list of suspicious injuries that 20-month-old Samantha Storm allegedly received on several occasions while spending time alone with Parish, 24, between March and April 1997.

Those injuries included hand-print shaped bruises to the child's buttocks, bruises to her head and broken bones in her foot, Luzaich said.

A doctor testified that the fatal blow the child suffered in April 1997 was comparable to falling off a several-story building and landing on concrete.

"This was severe and violent trauma," Luzaich said. "What could a 20-month-old child possibly do to provoke those injuries?"

But the testimony of the child's mother, Dawn Mathiasen, 26, could be prosecutors' only roadblock to Parish's conviction.

Defense attorney David Schieck said the child's abuser could have been Mathiasen, who testified that she initially lied about the injuries to police and day care workers in an effort to protect Parish.

"Dawn is obviously good at manipulating and lying to people," Schieck told jurors. "She had people fooled. Don't fall into that trap."

Mathiasen is serving a six- to 15-year sentence for child abuse and neglect. She disobeyed police orders to keep the child away from Parish after prior allegations of abuse.

The closing statements wrapped up Parish's trial before District Judge Valorie Vega. Parish is charged with a single count of first-degree murder by child abuse and faces a life sentence with or without parole if convicted.

Jurors were expected to continue deliberating today.

Prosecutors claim Parish violently shook and beat the child when she was left alone with him at his Nellis dormitory. Mathiasen had left the room to go to a fast food restaurant.

Airmen Jeff Fisher testified that he heard slapping sounds and crying coming from Parish's room. When he went into Parish's room, Parish looked startled and said he was only playing with the child, Fisher said.

Mathiasen said that when she returned, Samantha was vomiting and eventually began having seizures. Doctors declared the infant brain dead the next day. She'd suffered skull fractures and intercranial bleeding.

Mathiasen, who initially told police Parish had never been left alone with the child, said she lied because she didn't want to ruin Parish's chances of becoming a police officer. She said she always suspected Parish was the abuser.

But Schieck said Mathiasen's lies were to protect herself. He asked jurors to consider why Mathiasen would continue dating Parish if she believed he was beating her daughter.

"It's more likely that Dawn knew Brandon wasn't the abuser because she was," Schieck said.

Luzaich didn't deny Mathiasen's lack of credibility as a witness, but said she is already being held accountable for her actions.

Family members and day-care workers also testified that they saw no signs of abuse before Parish and Mathiasen began dating, she said.

"When a child dies, it makes you want to sit down and cry," the prosecutor said. "But when the death of a child is at the hands of another person, it makes you want to stand up and do something about it."