He Dialed 911 to Save His Baby. Then His Children Were Taken Away.

... But the suspicion of abusive head trauma, once raised, is hard to undo. Kristina Kerlus, a Las Vegas mother I spoke with, whose 2-month-old, Jocai Davis, was rushed to the hospital in 2018 in cardiac arrest, told me that doctors developed “tunnel vision” after finding that her son had the diagnosis’s signature symptoms. Jocai died three days later, and she was charged with murder. It took years of legal wrangling — during which her three other children were removed from her custody — for Kerlus to be vindicated. Prosecutors dropped charges in 2022 after the defense’s medical experts determined that Jocai had died from complications of sickle cell trait, an inherited blood disorder.

Read more of Pamela Colloff's investigative reporting into how shaken baby syndrome and similar medical diagnoses can result in medical malpractice and wrongful convictions that upend the lives of families across the nation.