Gomez trial: 'Raffy' suffered 'one injury after another'

EPHRATA — As the picture of a small, white body bag was projected on a large screen in the courtroom Wednesday, Maribel Gomez broke down into tears.

Her 2-year-old son, Rafael "Raffy" Gomez, sustained numerous injuries in his short life while in her care, including multiple skull fractures, broken legs and burns on his hand and tongue. The infant had both shoulders ripped from their sockets, but the excruciating injury was never reported to doctors.

Maribel Gomez, 32, is charged with homicide by abuse and first-degree manslaughter in connection with Raffy's death in September 2003. She's pleaded innocent to both charges, remains free and is living in Ephrata. Her other five children are in foster care, pending the outcome of the trial.

Raffy bounced back and forth between his foster parents and Maribel Gomez, starting three days after he was born in the back seat of a car with methamphetamine and cocaine in his system. A state-conducted fatality review after Raffy's death determined social workers were biased in favor of his birth mother, highlighting failures in the state's foster care system.

During opening statements of Maribel Gomez's often-delayed trial in Grant County Superior Court, both prosecutors and the mother's defense lawyer said one fact is undisputed: The number of injuries Raffy suffered in his short life is far beyond normal.

Grant County Prosecutor John Knodell described it as a remarkable constellation, or forest, of injuries.

"It's just one injury after another," Knodell told Superior Court Judge John Antosz, who is hearing the case without a jury. "It's diagnostic of abuse."

Gomez's defense lawyer, Bobby Moser, told Antosz each accidental head injury exacerbated the one before. The pattern increased his susceptibility for future accidents and left him in a constantly fragile state. The accidents built on each other, Moser said, until Raffy died as a result of a minor fall backwards in Maribel Gomez's home while she fed the boy noodles.

Moser said there were a number of people living with Raffy and his mother, leaving little opportunity for undetected abuse. Social workers, trained to spot abuse, visited the home regularly, the lawyer said.

"They observed what was going on in the home for a significant amount of time," Moser told the court.

He said Raffy displayed abnormal behaviors and had undiagnosed neurological problems. Raffy was a "head-banger," Moser said, who would bang his head until he fell asleep.

Moser said the anticipated testimony of Raffy's foster mother, Denise Griffith of Royal City, is biased.

"(Griffith) was going to do everything she could to thwart efforts by the state to put Raffy back with (Maribel Gomez)," the lawyer said.

Knodell told the court he'll prove Maribel Gomez is responsible, based on a two-year timeline of Raffy's life, the defendant's own statements and testimony from medical experts and people who were close to the boy and his mother.

During the 14 months Raffy spent with his foster mother, he sustained absolutely no injuries, according to the timeline Knodell presented to the court. The prosecutor said he'll contrast that with a constant pattern of escalating injury developed while in Maribel Gomez's care.

"No normal child, in a period of one year, suffers all these injuries by accident," Knodell said.

A prosecution witness, he said, is prepared to tell the court how she saw Raffy flung by his ankles across a room in Maribel Gomez's home. The witness reportedly listened as Maribel Gomez said she hated Raffy and thought he was spoiled by his foster parents, Knodell said.

When Raffy ended up in Samaritan Hospital's emergency room on one occasion with a fractured tibia, multiple bruises to the abdomen and pinch-mark lacerations on his nipple, Maribel Gomez and the boy's biological father were extremely evasive about the cause of the injuries, Knodell said.

Blistering burns on his hand were the result of spilled soup, the birth parents claimed at one point, while they said the broken bones and concussions were the result of accidental falls.

The mother went out of her way, the prosecutor said, to take Raffy to different hospitals for his constant injuries to avoid tipping off authorities to the alleged pattern of abuse. She'd also provide different names for Raffy to nurses, Knodell said.

The prosecutor introduced a number of complicated medical terms to the court, describing the various head injuries. He projected graphic autopsy photos taken by the Spokane County Medical Examiner and promised to call medical experts to the witness stand to interpret the boy's injuries, proving they were not the result of accidents.

The trial resumes today with testimony expected from prosecution witnesses.

Gomez faces a sentence ranging from 20 to 26 years in prison if found guilty of homicide by abuse. The manslaughter charge carries a sentence of about eight years, Knodell said.