OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) As 11 days of testimony conclude in the faith-healing trial of Carl and Raylene Worthington, jurors will be left to decide between two very different accounts of what killed the couple’s 15-month-old daughter.
Their decision will center on Ava Worthington’s symptoms, her underlying condition and whether the Worthingtons should have — or could have — sought medical intervention in time to save her life.
Jurors were expected to get the case on Tuesday (July 14) after defense lawyers closed their case on Monday.
Defense attorneys argued that Ava was killed by a fast-acting bacteria and was not the victim of medical neglect. Even if the parents had taken Ava to the hospital or called an ambulance, the child’s fate was sealed by a lethal one-two punch — streptococcus pneumonia, quickly followed by bacteremia, a blood infection, they said.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, charted a straight course linking Ava’s death to the Worthingtons’ decision not to provide basic medical care, never taking the child to a doctor, even when she developed a softball-size cyst on her neck.
In her final testimony Monday, Raylene Worthington disputed some of what she told detectives last year, saying she had been shocked and fatigued. “I was extremely upset and tired. I was in a state of shock,” she said.
In one 2008 interview, Raylene Worthington described Ava’s breathing as “choky” at some point during her final days. On Monday, she testified that she did not remember her daughter choking.
The Worthingtons are charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment for failing to provide adequate medical care for Ava, who died March 2, 2008.
The Worthingtons relied on Bible-based spiritual remedies — prayer, laying on of hands, anointing with oil — to treat the girl. The Worthingtons and other family members testified that they have never visited a doctor or used prescription medicine.
Members of their Oregon City church, the Followers of Christ, said it was not uncommon for dozens of people to visit the home of a sick person to pray or provide support.
Prosecutors said the swell of visitors signaled that parents and church members understood the seriousness of Ava’s condition. They noted that the Worthingtons held three faith-healing sessions for Ava during her last 24 hours and that all four of her grandparents spent the night at the Worthington home. None had stayed overnight before.