Jury Deliberations to Begin in Trial of Baby-Sitter

Vickie Maas, a Canyon Country baby-sitter charged with shaking a baby to death and endangering the lives of two others, was “a very angry adult who went out of control because she couldn’t handle a baby crying,” a prosecutor told San Fernando Superior Court jurors Monday.

“With the defendant’s history, it was not a question of whether this defendant would kill a baby,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer said in closing arguments in Maas’ trial. “It was just a question of when.”

Maas, 28, is charged with killing 6-month-old David Allen Duncan, who died Jan. 8. She is also charged with endangering the lives of two other infant boys in her care, Nicholas McNerny, a 7-month-old who suffered a broken leg in June, 1987, and Travis Hoyt, whose ear was bruised in August, 1987. The jury is scheduled to begin deliberating today.

Springer told the jury that Maas lied to authorities about how the babies were injured, shifting blame to others when questioned about the incidents.

But Maas’ attorney, Larry H. Layton, said in his closing arguments that Maas did not accuse others. When questioned about David, he said, she told authorities about the actions of others who had been in contact with him.

“It wasn’t that she was saying that they did it,” Layton said. “I don’t believe that she was so much trying to shift the blame as she was trying to determine what had happened.”

When she took the witness stand 2 weeks ago, Maas admitted that she had shaken David Duncan on Jan. 6, but testified that she did not tell the child’s parents, Karen and Larry Duncan of Canyon Country, about it because she did not think she had hurt the infant.

Maas testified that when David would not stop crying, she “panicked and . . . shook him gently, three to four times.” When the Duncans picked him up later that day, the boy was listless and vomited, they testified. They planned to take him to a doctor the next afternoon.

The Duncans returned the infant to Maas’ care the next morning. Maas testified that about 7:15 a.m., the child was playing on the floor when he stopped breathing. Maas called a neighbor, who administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, then summoned paramedics.

David Duncan died at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys on Jan. 8 from what doctors said was a swelling in his brain induced by shaking.

Springer charged that Maas was guilty of an abuse pattern in the three incidents and that she was aware of her inability to control her temper but disregarded it.

“The entire thrust of this case was that the defendant knew she had a problem and that she knew the risk she presented to infant boys,” Springer said.

Layton said that his client’s actions were accidental and that others might have acted similarly if faced with a baby who would not stop crying.

He told the jury that Maas shook David “not any harder than she would shake Ashley, her own child.”

He said Maas, who appeared sleepy, her eyelids drooping during closing arguments, was a “competent baby-sitter with a clean and beautiful home.”

Layton accused the prosecutor of drawing a false picture of his client as an abuser of children. “The state is choosing to make Vickie look bad so that you’ll convict her of murder,” Layton said.