The State - News from Sept. 21, 1987

An Oakland woman has been charged in a federal grand jury indictment with second-degree murder in the 1986 beating death of the 4-month-old boy that she and her husband wanted to adopt. The indictment accused Paula Renee Hale of killing Sean Benito Hale on June 21, 1986, at Ft. Lewis, Wash. Authorities said Hale and her husband, Julius, who serves in the military, were in the probationary period in the process of adopting the child from Catholic Community Services when the infant was killed. According to the Pierce County medical examiner’s office, the boy died from a blow by a blunt object to his head. Hale, who was freed on her own recognizance, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Sept. 30.