Baby Sitter to Be Tried as Accessory to Murder : D.A. Won’t Seek Slaying Conviction Against Woman, Contends Her Husband Killed Boy

The Orange County district attorney’s office has decided not to seek a murder conviction against a woman who testified in court that she alone accidentally killed a 13-month-old boy she was baby-sitting at her Anaheim home.

Instead, the prosecution will try her on charges of being an accessory to her husband’s alleged murder of the child and conspiracy to cover up his alleged involvement.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday dismissed a murder charge against Linda Garritson, 30, but only on a technicality. Assistant Dist. Atty. Ed Freeman said Wednesday, however, that he will not refile the murder charge when her trial begins Friday.

The prosecution claims that despite Linda Garritson’s admission that six years ago she killed the boy, Scott Cleveland, it actually was her husband, Michael, who killed the child.

Michael Garritson, 33, was tried for murder in the boy’s death last month, but a mistrial was declared when the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of a second-degree murder conviction. The lone juror held out for acquittal.

Testified She Lied

Michael Garritson never would have been arrested in the boy’s death if it hadn’t been for Linda Garritson’s statements to police last summer incriminating him, prosecutors said. But at his trial, Linda Garritson testified that she lied to police about her husband’s involvement to get back at him for having an affair with another woman.

She testified that her husband wasn’t even in the house when the baby was killed. She said she struck the baby’s head on the family stairs by accident while her husband was out jogging.

But the prosecution convinced all but one of the jurors that Linda Garritson was telling the truth when she told police last summer her husband was responsible, and that she was lying on the witness stand to cover up for him.

The Garritsons are still together and have moved to Fullerton since the baby’s death. Michael Garritson is free on $50,000 bail. His wife is free on her own recognizance.

Municipal Judge Logan Moore had dismissed the murder charge against Linda Garritson after her preliminary hearing last fall. The prosecution refiled the murder charge immediately. Superior Court Judge James O. Perez, however, dismissed it on Tuesday on the grounds that little evidence was presented against her at her preliminary hearing. But Perez acknowledged that he was aware she had incriminated herself at her husband’s trial, and that the murder charge could be refiled.

Freeman said he will instead charge her with being an accessory after the fact, conspiracy to cover up a murder, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. If convicted, she could be sentenced to three years in prison.

‘Trying to Tell the Truth’

Linda Garritson’s attorney, Charles Margines, said she will tell exactly the same story at her trial that she told at her husband’s.

“She is not trying to cover up for her husband; she is trying to tell the truth,” Margines said.

The baby’s death on Feb. 29, 1979, was first reported by the coroner’s office as an accident. But Anaheim police began looking into the incident again in 1982 after getting a tip from an undisclosed source that the boy was murdered.

The prosecution and Linda Garritson’s attorney agree that her trial will be almost like two trials in one.

“In order to prove that she was an accessory to murder, we’ve got to show that a murder was committed and who did it,” Freeman said.

Freeman said he expects to call the same two jailhouse informants who were prosecution witnesses at the Michael Garritson trial. They testified that while Michael Garritson was in jail, he told them he had killed the child.

A new trial date has not been set yet for Michael Garritson.

Freeman said he expects to ask Superior Court Judge David O. Carter on Friday to consolidate the two cases. But attorneys for both Garritsons say they will oppose it.