Defense attorney: Client says stepdaughter died after seizure, not murder

The defense attorney for a woman charged with murdering her 4-year-old stepdaughter said Monday that the woman has told him the girl apparently had some type of attack or seizure, which rendered her unresponsive.

The child, Kaylen Young, who died May 25 in a Columbus hospital, suffered "what her (step-) mom described as a seizure," reported attorney Dennis W. McNamara. He is representing – at least for the time being – 25-year-old Ashley J. Young of The Plains.

A neighbor of Young’s, who was next door during the incident and alerted another neighbor to call 911, confirmed Tuesday that Ashley Young did claim her stepdaughter had suffered a seizure. Neighbor Sandra Kinnison, however, said she didn’t believe Young’s claim.

“Kaylen never had no seizure,” insisted Kinnison, who said she saw the child sprawled on the floor of Young’s trailer, eyes open but apparently unconscious.

Young was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Athens County Common Pleas Court, where she pled not guilty to charges of aggravated murder and child endangerment. Authorities allege that on the afternoon of May 23, Young killed Kaylen Young at the trailer park where they live on Beech Road. Athens County Prosecutor Keller J. Blackburn said during the arraignment that he may go back to a grand jury to seek indictment on a third charge, though he would not say what that charge would be.

The child's father, Craig Young, was away at work during the May 23 incident, but Ashley Young's infant daughter, who was 5 weeks old, was reportedly present in the family's home.

Blackburn has said that Kaylen Young died of blunt force trauma to the head, and that the inside of the trailer showed signs that some type of violent altercation had taken place.

McNamara, however, said Ashley Young has told him that her stepdaughter was having a normal day when she suddenly appeared to undergo some type of seizure involving tremors.

According to Young's version of events as recounted by McNamara, the child had gotten off the school bus around noon after attending pre-school. Young picked her up and brought her back to the trailer as usual.

"She was having a perfectly normal day – Kaylen, and mom, for that matter," he said. Then around 4 p.m., according to Young's account, Kaylen "didn't feel well, and just collapsed, and appeared to be having a seizure."

McNamara said that to his knowledge the child has not had seizures before, and had recently been examined by a pediatrician.

"There wasn't a history (of seizures), at least not that I know of," he said.

The child was transported to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, then to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, where she died May 25 after removal of life support.

According to authorities, two different parties had called 911 during the incident at the Youngs' trailer May 23. McNamara said his client did not call 911 herself, but said that by her account, this was not because she didn't want to.

"When Kaylen went down, fell to the ground... Ashley couldn't find her cell phone in the trailer, and just started screaming," he recounted. "She's screaming 'Help! Call an ambulance!'" Neighbors who heard her made the 911 calls, he said.

Kinnison, whose trailer is adjacent to the Youngs’, said the first sign she had that something was wrong at the home was hearing Ashley Young screaming for help.

“She was screaming for me,” she recalled. “She said, ‘She had a seizure!’”

Kinnison said her own cell phone didn’t work when she tried it, so she alerted another neighbor to make a 911 call.

Kinnison said she immediately suspected Young was lying about the seizure, based both on her demeanor and the scene in the Youngs’ trailer. When Kinnison entered the home, she said, she saw Kaylen lying on the floor “like a broken angel,” her eyes open but blank, and an apparent bruise on the side of her head.

The trailer was neat, she said, with most of the family’s possessions packed up, apparently because the Youngs were getting ready to move, having been recently evicted from their trailer.

Kinnison said she knew Ashley Young, but not well. In the weeks before Kaylen’s death, she reported, her stepmother had started to keep her inside the trailer at all times she was home, never allowing her outside to play.

“I just thought, ‘Ashley’s going to be one of those strict moms,’” she recalled. “(But) I thought it odd that (Kaylen) was never outside at all.”

Young was not arrested immediately, but was taken into custody and charged after emergency room personnel at O'Bleness reported Kaylen Young's injuries. McNamara said he could not account for the reports that the Youngs' trailer was in a state of disarray, as though it had been the scene of a violent disturbance.

"They were moving, and the place might have been a mess," he suggested.

He also could offer no explanation for the claim by Blackburn that the child appeared to have marks on her neck. McNamara said that Ashley Young told him the little girl did fall down and hit her head, but that what she described does not seem adequate to account for lethal head injuries.

The child fell to the floor a distance "not more than the height of a 4-year-old," he said. McNamara said that a friend of Ashley Young's arrived at the trailer to visit, showing up in the midst of the emergency.

"She just stopped by right in the middle of this," he said. "(Kaylen) was still having the seizure when the friend arrived."

McNamara was retained by family members to represent Ashley Young, but he said Monday that they appear to lack the financial means to have private counsel in a case of this magnitude, and he will recommend that the court appoint an attorney. He made this request during Tuesday's arraignment hearing.

Kaylen Young's father, meanwhile, has filed papers to divorce Ashley Young. Craig Young, 24, filed the divorce complaint in Athens County Common Pleas Court last week. The couple has been married for a little less than two years, the document indicates.

The court documents indicate that Craig and Ashley Young had one child together, a daughter born April 19 of this year. This is the child that authorities say was in the home when the incident leading to Kaylen Young's death occurred.

Craig Young's divorce complaint alleges that Ashley Young "has been guilty of extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty, the particulars of which will be made known to this court upon a hearing of this cause." It asks for a divorce, and an "equitable distribution" of the couple's property and debts.

At Tuesday's arraignment, Common Pleas Judge Michael Ward agreed to Blackburn's request to continue Young's bond at $1 million. Young's family members packed the courtroom to hear the proceedings; at one point Young began crying at the defense table.

McNamara said after the hearing that he plans to inquire with local authorities about complaints he has heard from Ashley Young that a corrections officer at the regional jail, who reportedly was involved in a search of Young's home, has allegedly been talking about her case inappropriately to other inmates at the jail.