The Death of Innocence

The police say Krystal Voss shook her son hard enough to kill him. The evidence says something else.

Comments (0) By Alan Prendergast Thursday, Jul 31 2003

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In other words, Kyran couldn't have suffered the brain injury the night before Ramirez's visit, then be observed calmly sleeping by his father at six the next morning and be heard giggling on the phone by his grandfather four hours later. "That doesn't sound like a severe shaking occurred," Martin says. "There should be some symptoms right away. The child might not be unconscious right away, but he would be lethargic, vomiting, maybe seizing. You would notice that something isn't right."

Given the severity of the injury, it's also unlikely that Kyran would have survived eight or more hours without medical attention -- another circumstance that suggests the injury occurred shortly before he was brought to the hospital. "My impression, from looking at the medical records, is that the child suffered a severe, nearly lethal blunt-force trauma to the right side of the head," says pediatric pathologist Harry Wilson, "right around the time that the call for help went out to the mother."

John Johnston

All natural: Krystal Voss and Damien Gaston met at Wild Oats. Their son, Kyran, was born at home.

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A former Children's Hospital staff pathologist who now lives in Texas, Wilson has served as an expert witness in the trials of Andrea Yates and several other high-profile child-homicide cases. He doesn't rule out the possibility that Kyran was shaken, as well, but the asymmetrical nature of the injury points to blunt-force trauma -- "a whack upside the head," as he puts it.

According to Wilson, it's not uncommon in child-abuse cases for perpetrators to retool their stories in an attempt to explain away the injuries under investigation. "In a situation where someone has special knowledge about what happened to a child, they will often change stories to fit the information that comes to light," he says. "Changing stories with time can be an indication that the person is trying to hide something."

It's also not unusual, Wilson adds, for innocent parents to blame themselves when trying to figure out how their child got hurt. "In cases where a child is injured," he says, "people who care about the child are going to feel guilty. It's a normal human response to think, 'What could I have possibly done that might have caused this?' Loving parents will come up with the most insignificant thing."

Steve Gaston broods on the death of his grandson. He thinks about the case all the time, he says. Thinks, broods, wonders, obsesses -- with rising anger.

Right after Kyran was hurt, when everyone was talking about an accident and apologizing and forgiving each other, he was already angry. How could anyone be so careless with a baby like that?

Later, when he found out about the love affair between Ramirez and Voss, he was full of questions and reproaches. His relationship with his son and daughter-in-law became severely strained. "My feeling is that Krystal and Damien enabled the guy who caused this to happen to be in their life," he says. "She lost track of what she had. They say it could have happened to anybody, but there were clues they didn't want to look at."

Both of Kyran's parents were simply too trusting, he says. "When he was young, Damien had friends who robbed my house," he explains. "I would try to warn him, but he'd disagree and argue. He's been too naive. Both of them believed in being totally honest, but Sergeant Alejo couldn't recognize total honesty."

Following Voss's arrest, Steve Gaston had several lengthy phone conversations with Alejo. He told the investigator about hearing Kyran laughing and playing two hours before Ramirez arrived. He told him about the apologies Ramirez blubbered later that day, about the apologies Ramirez offered to Voss in subsequent phone calls when he couldn't know the conversation was being overheard. "Why would he be apologizing to Krystal for what he did if there was a conspiracy?" Gaston asked.

Alejo told him he didn't know. To this day, he's never taken a formal statement from Gaston about what he witnessed. When Gaston persisted in calling him, demanding to know why he was "persecuting" Voss, Alejo threatened to have him arrested for harassment.

Among cops, judges and even defense attorneys in Alamosa, Alejo has his defenders, who regard him as an honest, experienced investigator. But then, most small-town police departments are poorly equipped for complex child-abuse investigations; in some states, such cases are handled by experts from a statewide agency who can pool resources.

"The standards of law enforcement down here are substantially less than they are in the metro area," says Cas Garcia, a former Denver prosecutor who now practices law in Alamosa. "They don't have comparable skills; they're not paid as well, and there's a lot more slipping and sliding. I think Harry does the best he can, given the situation."

Gaston and Voss held a service for their son on a blustery spring day in the mountains. Kyran had loved books, so they passed out bookmarks that bore his photo, a poem and the too-close dates of his birth and death.

Sometimes described as a "Native American prayer," the poem is a widely circulated work of consolation. Its authorship is disputed, but it's frequently attributed to a Maryland homemaker, Mary Elizabeth Frye: