Woman Will Go on Trial in Baby’s Death : Courts: Judge finds strong suspicion that Burbank mother suffocated 10-day-old son.

Calling it “one of the most disturbing” cases she has ever heard, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge on Monday ordered a Burbank woman to be tried for murder in the mysterious death of her 10-day-old son.

Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell said that her decision was difficult, and that the facts and legal issues raised during a preliminary hearing in the case of Tani Renee McCollough occupied her thoughts all weekend.

In the end, the judge found a “strong suspicion” that McCollough, 31, had suffocated the baby--even if the Los Angeles County coroner’s office could not rule out sudden infant death syndrome, commonly know as SIDS or “crib death.”

Prosecutor Karen L. Tandler is alleging that McCollough, depressed and overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a mother, smothered baby Colin and then leaped from a freeway overpass in an apparent suicide attempt.

The defense contends that McCollough, an admittedly apprehensive new mother, became distraught and leaped from the overpass after finding her son dead in his cradle.

Defense attorney Bernard W. Talmas argued that there was no evidence that the baby had been murdered, and that an autopsy failed to determine the cause of the baby’s death.

“It’s bad enough she discovered her child dead, jumped off a bridge and tried to kill herself. Now she’s in custody. It’s a crazy situation,” said Talmas, asking for dismissal of the murder charge.

Kennedy-Powell said, however, that although the evidence she heard might leave reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors, it was strong enough to move the case forward for trial.

The judge then lowered McCollough’s bail from $1 million to $250,000, saying: “I doubt there’s anything the criminal justice system can do to this defendant that’s any worse than what she’s already experienced, and has to experience on a day-to-day basis whenever she recalls what happened to her infant son.”

McCollough’s friends, neighbors and family--including husband Jeffrey, the chief prosecution witness against her--immediately began trying to raise bail to secure her release.

The case began to unfold shortly after 10 a.m. on Nov. 23, when Jeffrey McCollough came home from a morning run to find his wife missing and his baby son cold and blue in his cradle. The bedroom door was locked and the window screen unlatched.

Moments later, as McCollough worked to revive his son, Tani McCollough leaped from the Hollywood Way overpass onto the Ventura Freeway. She was comatose for a week, and hospitalized for a month, with a fractured skull and multiple other fractures.

The baby was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank.