Foster Parents Face Trial Over Death of 19-Month-Old Boy

A couple Thursday was ordered to stand trial for murder in the death of a 19-month-old twin boy placed in their custody five months earlier by the county foster care system.

Fernando Enriquez Paz, 34, and his 29-year-old wife, Maria Del Carmen Elizabeth Paz, were bound over for trial by Municipal Judge Barbara Lee Burke after a three-day preliminary hearing attended by relatives and other supporters of the Glendale couple.

A deputy Los Angeles County medical examiner, Dr. Susan F. Selser, said Julio Gonzalez died Dec. 29 of multiple injuries, including head trauma, two days after paramedics transported the comatose boy to a local hospital.

Medical personnel called police after noticing suspicious bruises on Julio, whose twin brother also was in their care.

Fernando Paz, an emergency-room reception clerk for another hospital, had tried to revive the choking boy with the Heimlich maneuver and cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the couple’s home before calling 911, authorities have said. They said the toddler remained comatose until life support systems were disconnected less than 48 hours later.

Selser, who performed the autopsy, recounted bruises and other injuries to the child’s head, eyes, lips, face, back and abdomen, many--but not all--of them consistent with “shaken baby syndrome.” This can cause death in children whose heads are violently shaken, she said.

Judge Burke, in denying two defense motions to dismiss the case, rejected defense attorney H. Russell Halpern’s argument that the prosecution failed to pinpoint the probable culpable party--Paz, his wife or someone else--or that the person had intended to kill the child.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Cheri Lewis, arguing that intent was irrelevant in this case, noted that the Pazes were identified as the sole caretakers of the child and thus were jointly responsible for his death.

She alluded to radiologist Donald Bouger’s finding that the child had suffered three arm fractures in the weeks leading to his death. This suggests a climate of abuse, she said, that contradicts the claims by county and foster-care officials that the Pazes were exemplary parents.

The Pazes, who worked 16-hour days at two jobs, have entered not guilty pleas.

The dead boy’s twin and the couple’s two biological children have been placed in foster care.

Burke, citing the defendants’ flight risk--they emigrated from Peru in 1980--continued bail at $585,000 each and scheduled their arraignment for April 18 in Superior Court in Pasadena. In addition to murder, the two are charged with assault on a child that caused death.