Comatose Baby’s Fate at Issue

As her son lay in a coma at a hospital only a few miles away, a mother sobbed in court Tuesday as she gave conflicting accounts to a judge about how her baby was injured.

At one point, Tamara Sepulveda, 23, shook a stuffed toy bear to demonstrate to Judge Richard E. Behn how her ex-boyfriend injured their baby, Christopher, last year in Cypress.

The mother’s testimony came during the first day of a custody hearing at the family court in Orange. Initially, the mother said she caused the injuries, but she later explained that she was confused by the question and that the boy’s father was responsible.

The underlying question in the case is not who hurt 8-month-old Christopher but what to do with him. Sepulveda wants doctors to remove life-support machines and allow Christopher to die. The child’s father, who could face a murder charge if the boy dies, wants life support to continue.

Though Behn is being asked todecide who should take custody of the child, he soon may face an even more perplexing de- cision: whether to order the machines turned off in the child’s interests.

Moises Ibarra, 23, the infant’s father, attended Tuesday’s hearing in an orange jail jumpsuit. Assistant Public Defender David Dworakowski has said Ibarra wants to keep life-support machines on out of hope that his child might live.

According to a social serv- ices report, doctors have concluded the baby suffered a devastating brain injury and will not recover.