Trial of Newport Man Centers on Cause of Child’s Death : Court: Prosecutors allege that Brian Laudenback, 33, killed his then-girlfriend’s 22-month-old son by inflicting internal injuries that caused the boy to bleed to death. Defense says youngster died of a head injury from an earlier fall.

The exact cause of the death of 22-month-old Tyler Jaeger emerged Wednesday as a central issue in the trial of the Newport Beach house painter accused of killing the boy while baby-sitting.

*

Prosecutors allege that Brian Laudenback, 33, killed his then-girlfriend’s son by somehow inflicting trauma severe enough to cause the child to bleed to death from internal injuries on March 25, 1994. He is charged with second-degree murder.

At the time, Laudenback was baby-sitting for the child’s mother, Karey Jaeger, a special-education teacher with whom he had moved in several weeks earlier.

Laudenback’s lawyer contends that the boy actually died of a brain injury stemming from a fall a week earlier and maintains that the internal injuries were caused when Laudenback tried to revive the child after he lost consciousness due to complications from the head injury.

Prosecution witnesses during two days of testimony that began Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court included the boy’s mother, who said she is now convinced that Laudenback killed her child.

During a session Wednesday, the pathologists who ruled the death a homicide testified that the boy had two broken ribs and cuts to his liver and pancreas and showed fresh injuries on his face and head.

Dr. Aruna Singhania, who performed the autopsy, told jurors that the injuries were too severe to have been caused by accident. She said that extensive pooling of blood found in the abdomen was “very abnormal” and that injuries to the organs must have resulted from a “very forceful” blow.

Dr. Barbara Zaias, a pathologist who examined the boy’s brain after death, said that the head injury was not the cause of death. “It was not sufficient to kill,” Zaias said.

Jaeger, 30, said in an interview Wednesday that she never suspected Laudenback of striking Tyler until she saw a photograph of a hand-shaped bruise on the boy’s buttock after his death. Laudenback later acknowledged spanking the boy a day earlier.

Relatives and neighbors in the close-knit community where the couple lived have said that Laudenback, a former bartender, loved children.

“He loved Tyler and was a good person to Tyler,” said Laudenback’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Sharon Petrosino.

Petrosino suggested that pathologists jumped to the wrong conclusion, ignoring the complicating effects of the head injury a week earlier. Laudenback, who was also baby-sitting when the previous injury occurred, said the boy fell from the top of an 18-inch-high play table and suffered a skull fracture when he struck his head on a wooden fence and the concrete floor.

Petrosino said Laudenback caused the internal injuries by incorrectly administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation when the boy became sick and appeared unconscious on the day he died.

Laudenback made occasional notes during proceedings Wednesday but showed little reaction.

If convicted, Laudenback faces a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison.