Faith-healing defense introduces ‘silent killer’ concept

Medical experts in Beagley defense cast doubt that family knew son could die

By Matthew Graham

The Oregon City News, Jan 25, 2010, Updated Jan 25, 2010

L.E. BASKOW / Portland Tribune

Jeff and Marci Beagley listen to testimony this week in their Clackamas County Circuit Court trial. The defense opened its testimony Monday with a doctor who testified that the family of 16-year-old Neil Beagley might not have known he was dying in June 2008.

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The defense in the faith-healing trial in the June 2008 death of 16-year-old Neil Beagley began its case Monday with a medical expert witness who said the teen's symptoms weren’t necessarily so bad that a reasonable person would think he could have died.

The prosecution, laying its case last week, laid a foundation that the parents knew Neil’s condition was dire and failed to provide adequate medical care.

With its first witness, the defense hit back with the testimony that they could have thought Neil just had the flu, as other church members have said.

“Taking into account all of those symptoms, do you think a reasonable parent would have concluded there was a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death,” defense attorney Wayne Mackeson asked Dr. Douglas Diekema of the Seattle Children’s Hospital.

“No,” Diekema said. “The symptoms that have been described are not inconsistent with somebody who might have a viral illness, somebody who might have influenza … these remind me of a number of children who I’ve treated with H1N1 … There was nothing remarkable about the food journal … I haven’t heard anything there that would suggest that a reasonable parent would” have thought he was going to die.

Difficult to say

Neil died on June 17, 2008. His parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, are members of the Followers of Christ Church, which rejects doctors and medical treatment in favor of faith healing. They are charged with criminally negligent homicide in their son’s death.

Neil Beagley's death was caused by an inflammation in his urinary tract, according to the county medical examiner’s office.

The law requires parents provide adequate medical care for their children and jurors in the case will decide whether the Beagleys’ actions were a significant deviation from what a normal person would have done.

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