The Wyoming Supreme Court has denied a new trial to a woman convicted of murdering her boyfriend’s 2-year-old daughter, because it didn’t agree with her argument that merely failing to take the dying toddler to the hospital for nearly a day couldn’t be child abuse.
Carolyn Aune, 31, was convicted of first-degree murder last year in the 2021 killing of her boyfriend’s 2-year-old daughter. The little girl died of a gut-punch or gut stomp, with her organs poisoned with excrement and her leg partially amputated, court documents say.
The Wyoming Supreme Court authored a unanimous ruling Friday, saying the prosecutor who saw Aune convicted in 2023 followed the law, and that Aune failing to take the dying toddler to the hospital fit the definition of child abuse in this case.
Felony Wrapped In A Felony
Aune’s murder conviction was a felony wrapped in a felony.
The jury found that she recklessly inflicted a physical injury on the girl by not taking her to the hospital when her body was apparently shutting down, which it deemed to be child abuse. And because the girl died as a result of Aune’s child abuse, the jury convicted her of first-degree murder.
Aune had claimed during her own trial in April 2023 that she watched her boyfriend, Moshe Williams, stomp on the little girl’s gut. But four months after Aune’s conviction, another jury found Williams not guilty of charges he’d faced in the girl’s death.
Aune was sentenced to life in prison in September 2023.
‘Inflict’
Aune appealed in March of this year, arguing that there wasn’t enough evidence for her to be convicted of the lesser felony of child abuse, which the jury used to launch its ultimate verdict of guilty on first-degree murder.
Wyoming law says a person is guilty of child abuse if she intentionally or recklessly “inflicts” upon a minor child physical injury that goes beyond reasonable corporal punishment discipline.
“Based on a dictionary definition of ‘inflict,’ (Aune) asserts that the statute requires an act of commission, not an act of omission,” says the high court’s order.
Meaning, Aune theorized that the word “inflict” specifies that abuse means doing something, not failing to do something.
“She contends the Legislature never intended to include neglecting a duty of care within the child abuse statute,” says the order.
The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office countered on appeal, saying Wyoming’s child abuse statute includes a definition of the act, but also a laundry list of specific acts of child abuse that includes both acts of commission and acts of omission, like starving a child.
The Wyoming Supreme Court agreed with the prosecutors and pointed to two of its previous child abuse cases, which involved acts of omission: one involving a starved 8-month-old baby and another was against a man who mentally injured his children by not tending to them.
Be Reasonable
As for Aune’s case, the prosecutor at her trial presented three medical experts who testified that the girl’s gut-punch injury wouldn’t have killed her if she’d been taken to the hospital right away.
Aune claimed at trial that Williams stomped on the girl’s gut the evening of March 26, 2021. Aune stayed home with the girl that night and most of the next morning, as the girl filled her pullup with diarrhea and eventually became unresponsive, says the high court’s ruling.
Aune claimed she didn’t know how bad the girl’s injury was and she “trusted” Williams would take the girl to the hospital as needed.
Three medical experts countered, saying prompt medical care is essential after an injury like that, and a “reasonable” caregiver would have known the girl needed care for several hours before she was actually taken to the hospital.
Williams brought the girl to the hospital at about noon March 27, 2021.
“The prosecutor did not misstate the law by arguing a person responsible for a child’s welfare can recklessly commit child abuse by failing to act when she has a responsibility to act, knows her failure to act will create a substantial risk to the child, and that failure is a gross deviation from a standard of reasonable conduct,” the high court’s order says. “Because (the girl) died as the result of the child abuse inflicted upon her by Ms. Aune, the evidence is sufficient to sustain Ms. Aune’s conviction for murder in the first degree.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
