Yurko Continues To Fight For New Trial
Father Convicted Of Shaking Infant Son To Death In 1997
POSTED: Wednesday, August 25, 2004
UPDATED: 2:21 pm EDT August 25,
2004
The father convicted of shaking his infant son to death continued his fight for a new trial and possible freedom Wednesday, according to Local 6 News.
Hundreds of people are convinced that Alan Yurko played no role in his 10-week-old son's death in 1997 even though he was convicted of the crime in 1999.
Wednesday, retired pediatrician Edward Yazbak refuted the prosecution's belief that Yurko's infant son was shaken to death. He said there was no evidence of whiplash or neck injury which would be consistent with shaking an infant.
Yazbak believes the child suffered from a bad reaction to six vaccines injected into Yurko's son days before he died.
"I believe he had some kind of allergic sensitivity reaction to his vaccine which commonly occurs 10 to 12 days after the DPT vaccination," Yazbak said.
Yazbak also said that broken ribs found on the infant could not have happened by shaking the baby, Local 6 News reported.
Also, errors made by the former Orange County medical examiner will be in the spotlight this week.
Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner Dr. Shashi Gore conducted the baby's autopsy and ruled the child was shaken to death.
In February the state Medical Examiner's Commission unanimously barred Gore from performing autopsies after it ruled he had committed at least eight mistakes in the child's autopsy.
After the hearing this week, Circuit Judge C, Alan Lawson will consider if there's enough new information to overturn the conviction and order a new trial. He also could let Yurko's 1999 shaken-baby conviction stand.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
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