AUBURN – Super normal.
That is how Nathaniel Allen’s foster mother described the boy’s personality and development during his first year of life in Guatemala.
Ethel Aplicano, a foster mom who has cared for 25 Guatemalan children over the past seven years, traveled to the United States this week to testify for the state in its case against Sarah Allen.
A 31-year-old former hair stylist, Allen is on trial for allegedly shaking her 21-month-old adopted son to death on Feb. 14, 2003.
Aplicano took the stand Wednesday, the sixth day of the manslaughter trial.
“He was very normal,” she said, speaking through a Spanish translator, “like any other child.”
Aplicano cared for Nathaniel Allen for about a year while Sarah and Jeremy Allen completed the adoption process. The couple picked the boy up and took him to their home in Lisbon Falls when he was 1 year old.
State prosecutors called Aplicano to the stand in hopes that her description of Nathaniel would help convince jurors that Nathaniel died as a result of being jerked and shaken by Sarah Allen, not as a result of a pre-existing, metabolic disorder as argued by the defense.
Aplicano testified that she never had any concerns about the boy’s development or overall health. She described him as an active baby who was grabbing the blankets in his crib at 4 months old and using a walker at 5 months.
He was so active, she said, that she called him a little worm.
Aplicano was one of the state’s last witnesses. Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese wrapped up her case Wednesday with testimony from a neuropathologist who concluded that Nathaniel’s brain injuries were consistent with a violent shaking or jerking.
Allen’s attorney, Verne Paradie, will spend the next few days calling doctors and other expert witnesses with different conclusions.
He hopes to convince the jurors that Nathaniel was developmentally delayed, and that his delays were the result of a brain disorder that eventually caused his death.
He also hopes to show that the state’s medical experts had information that should have alerted them to the boy’s existing problems, but they ignored it.
Testimony in the trial is expected to wrap up early next week.
This is Sarah Allen’s second trial. Her first trial last June ended without a verdict because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision.
Jurors later reported that the final vote was 11-1, with one juror holding firm to her belief that Allen was innocent.
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