Experts testify in hearing on whether Willowbrook man gets new trial in boy's death

An assistant Cook County medical examiner determined in 2002 that 2½-year-old Steven Quinn Jr. died of multiple injuries due to blunt force trauma to his head and abdomen.

During a hearing Tuesday morning to determine whether the former Willowbrook man serving a 65-year prison sentence for killing the boy, Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan - now the Knox County, Tennessee, medical examiner - testified her opinion has not changed over time.

The abdominal trauma, which she said caused internal tearing and other damage to the boy's intestines, was the "No. 1 issue," while the boy's head wounds, which included a raised knot and bruising, were "a minor aspect of the whole trauma spectrum."

Randy Liebich, now 39, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004 for the Feb. 8, 2002, beating of his girlfriend's son while caring for him in the couple's Willowbrook apartment. The boy died three days later.

At Liebich's 2004 trial, doctors counted 42 injuries on the toddler's 44-pound body.

Liebich argued it was the child's mother, Kenyatta Brown, who inflicted the fatal injuries the night before. The defendant's sister, cousin, and a friend testified they had seen Brown hit Steven on other occasions.

The Second District Appellate Court ordered the hearing in March 2016 to determine whether Liebich should be granted a new trial on the basis of ineffective representation. He is now represented by the University of Chicago Law School's Exoneration Project.

Shortly after Mileusnic-Polchan's testimony Tuesday, Dr. Patrick Barnes, chief of pediatric neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center in California, testified via live video feed from his office.

Barnes - who did not examine Quinn but reviewed some transcripts from the 2004 trial and CT scans taken of Quinn's brain, chest and abdomen - said the scans actually revealed no evidence of any trauma and that he believed the necrosis occurring in the boy's intestines likely brought on sepsis and led to the clotting and bleeding the scans identified on the left side of his brain.

"I would put non-traumatic disease at the top of my list for what's going on here," Barnes said. "It's plausible that what's going on in the brain is a complication of what's going on in the abdomen."

When prosecutors presented the doctor with several instances from trial - including Liebich saying the boy may have hit his head on a table while playing with a dog and, later, that he hit the boy with an open hand twice to get the boy to stop biting his finger - Barnes conceded the boy could have suffered from trauma he was unable to see by reviewing only the CT scans.

Testimony continues at 10 a.m. Wednesday and is expected to continue through Thursday and again on Aug. 16 before Judge John Kinsella is expected to rule.