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Less than a week after the exhumation and just two days after an autopsy of Kaelie Cusick's body, a murder charge was dismissed against the child's stepmother.
Kosciusko County Prosecutor Chuck Waggoner filed the motion for dismissal Wednesday in Kosciusko Circuit Court indicating that the state was not ready to proceed with the case at this time.
"I just want to go home with my family," Sherrie Cusick said as she walked out of the Kosciusko County Jail Wednesday afternoon.
She and her husband, Richard, walked quietly to the county parking lot arm in arm, got into their red truck and drove off. Richard Cusick, with whom Sherrie has 1-year-old and 2-year-old children, has maintained his wife's innocence in both the deaths of Kaelie and his 7-year-old son, Anthony. A murder charge remains pending against Sherrie Cusick in connection with Anthony's death and the weeklong trial is tentatively set to begin May 17. She was being held at KCJ without bond in Kaelie's case and was released from jail Wednesday on the bond previously posted in Anthony's case.
Cusick, 33, of 11749 Pied Piper Parkway, Cromwell, was charged with murder in the death of 4-year-old Kaelie in November after an investigation which included experts from two other states.
When Kaelie died Aug. 12, 1996, after a fall down the stairs at the home of her father and stepmother, authorities originally ruled her death accidental. The child was reportedly playing dress-up and became entangled in a sheet before tumbling down a flight of stairs and breaking her neck. However, two forensic experts reviewed X-rays and other documentation from Kaelie's death investigation and reportedly determined that the child did not suffer a broken neck. The doctors, a forensic pathologist from Minnesota and a forensic radiologist from Alabama, concurred that the child died from a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, officials said.
Mike Reed, Cusick's court-appointed attorney, said this morning that although the case was dismissed "without prejudice," meaning charges could be refiled at a later date, he doesn't anticipate the case being reopened.
"Unless something new comes to light," Reed said, "the case won't be refiled." He said the state dismissed charges because "they just didn't have a case."
Waggoner was in court this morning and could not be reached for comment.
Kosciusko County Deputy Coroner John Sadler said Tuesday that results of Monday's autopsy would not be available for four to six weeks. A story published in a Fort Wayne newspaper on Wednesday was disputed by Dr. Scott Wagner, a board-certified pediatric forensic pathologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne. Wagner said he has not yet rendered an opinion on findings from Monday's autopsy, but did tell a reporter that he could not yet offer an opinion different than that determined in the original autopsy. The newspaper report Dr. Joseph Czaja, who performed the 1996 autopsy, ruled Kaelie's death accidental. No mode of death, however, was ever entered onto Kaelie's death certificate, officials said.
Wagner, Czaja and Janice Ophoven, M.D., of Woodbury, Minn., conducted the latest autopsy, and Reed said that all three doctors concurred on preliminary results - that there was no evidence of strangulation, but there was evidence of spinal cord impairment consistent with a fall.
Reed said that while official results have not yet been released, tests that will take about three week to complete will not change the preliminary outcome. "The second autopsy basically confirmed the first one," he said.
"This has been the case from hell," a police official said. "There were two people in that house. One is dead. The other isn't talking."
Former prosecutor David Kolbe filed the murder charge against Cusick in Kaelie's death after reviewing a probable cause affidavit submitted by the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department. The investigation into Kaelie's death remained open even after a Feb. 3, 1998, grand jury failed to indict her in that case.
That same grand jury did indict Sherrie Cusick in the Nov. 23, 1996, death of Anthony Cusick, who died in a fire in the Cusick home. Anthony was allegedly playing with matches in a closet and died from smoke inhalation.
Evidence from Anthony's death suggests foul play, authorities said, because no matches were found in the closet in which Anthony's body was found and the burn pattern in the closet is said to be consistent with an unconscious child. Also, the closet door was not locked, obstructed or otherwise barricaded to prevent his exit, according to court documents.
