AUBURN – When Nathaniel Allen arrived at Maine Medical Center in Portland, he wasn’t moving, he couldn’t breathe on his own and his small pupils had no reaction to light.

Dr. Allen Browne ordered an immediate CAT scan.

The detailed X-ray of the boy’s brain prompted Browne to call in a brain surgeon, as well as police detectives and child abuse experts.

Browne told a jury Friday why he believes Nathaniel Allen died as a result of child abuse, not from falling down.

A pediatric surgeon with more than 30 years of experience, he was one of several doctors the state hopes will prove its case that Sarah Allen killed her son by shaking him to death on Feb. 14, 2003.

Allen, 30, is standing trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court on a charge of manslaughter. She has insisted all along that she never abused her son.

In Browne’s opinion, the injuries to the boy’s brain showed otherwise.

Violent maneuvers’

Browne testified Friday that the X-rays of the boy’s head showed blood between his brain and skull.

He listed three things that can cause that type of bleeding: a blood-clotting disorder, a rupturing of the blood vessels or some type of trauma.

The toddler showed no symptoms of having a blood-clotting disorder, and ruptured blood vessels happen to people who are 85, not 21 months, Browne testified.

“By process of elimination, we were left with trauma,” the doctor said.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese asked Browne to explain what type of trauma could have caused Nathaniel’s injuries.

Browne explained that a person’s brain sits inside the skull, and when the skull starts and stops moving at a fast rate, the brain knocks into it and becomes damaged.

“What type of motion or force is necessary?” Marchese asked the doctor.

“Violent maneuvers,” he said.

Browne is one of many people who questioned Sarah Allen on the night her adopted son was rushed to the hospital. He testified that she told him that Nathaniel had fallen in the tub.

“My opinion is the injuries we saw on the CAT scan were not consistent with that mechanism,” Browne testified.

Allen’s attorney, Verne Paradie, asked the doctor whether the scenario would be different if the boy repeatedly threw himself on the tub. Browne acknowledged that it would be.

Re-enactment

Sarah Allen told detectives during a videotaped re-enactment of the events leading up to her son’s death that Nathaniel fell at least twice in the tub, then again in his bedroom and maybe a few other times during the day.

Maine State Police Detective Herb Leighton, the lead investigator in the case, took Allen to her house in Lisbon Falls on Feb. 15 to shoot the video. At the time, Nathaniel was still on life support.

The state showed the tape to jurors Friday during Leighton’s testimony.

“Yesterday was just a lot of falling and the extremely hard falling that he usually doesn’t do,” Allen told the detective as he followed her around her house.

Pointing out that Allen hadn’t slept for nearly 48 hours at the time of the re-enactment, Paradie asked Leighton if part of his strategy was to get people to talk at their weakest moments.

“It’s important that we have an atmosphere of honesty,” Leighton replied.

If convicted of manslaughter, Allen could serve up to 40 years in prison. Her trial, which is expected to last another week and a half, will continue Monday with the state calling more witnesses.

[email protected]