Jurors found a Weare man guilty of a negligent homicide for causing the death of his one-and-a-half year old daughter in 2019.
Christian Cummings, 24, stood trial last week in Hillsborough County Superior Court on charges of negligent homicide, child endangerment and reckless conduct. Cummings could face up to 30 years in prison.
At the time of her death in February 2019, one-and-a-half year old Kamryn Cummings was living in filthy conditions in a crowded home on Colby Road in Weare. Hundreds of lice were found crawling on her lifeless body.
According to the indictment, the toddler died of dehydration, an electrolyte imbalance and/or urosepsis, a blood infection that began with an untreated urinary tract infection, which prosecutors said were all due to severe neglect.
However, defense attorney Ted Lothstein argued that her cause of death was a result of sudden unexplained death in childhood. But, leading up to her death, the toddler was coughing, vomiting and having difficulty breathing.
Closing arguments relied heavily on the witness testimony of two former New Hampshire medical examiners, Dr. Christine James and Dr. Thomas Andrews, who conducted the child’s autopsy.
Lothstein argued that the medical examiners findings were inconsistent with one another: James testified that the child’s cause of death was probable urosepsis while Andrews testified that the findings were speculatory. However, they agreed that diagnosing sepsis in a deceased patient is difficult.
Prosecutors argued that a contributing factor of the toddler’s death was anemia caused by the thousands of lice feeding on her blood, a discovery that James supported.
Lothstein argued that Cummings was a product of his environment and did not intentionally neglect his child. Rather, Cummings treated her the way that he was treated and raised her in the home where he was raised. By all accounts, the home was in a state of squalor.
“It’s a horrible house and it’s awful to think that children, adults and animals were living in that house but can you hang it all on Christian?” Lothstein asked the jurors. “He grew up in this house, this was his normal, which is very sad.”
Instead, he placed equal blame the toddlers preexisting medical conditions, pediatricians who gave her a clean bill of health a month prior to her death and the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) who failed to place her in a safe home.
Prosecutor Mark Ryder said family members warned Cummings about his daughter’s condition but their concerns were ignored. He said the abhorrent conditions of the home contributed to the toddler’s sickness and rapid deterioration.
“This isn’t a baby that can’t move around. This is a 17-month-old that will grab everything and put it into her mouth,” Ryder said. “There were Lego bricks covered in food, there was food left out, there were open and unrefrigerated milk jugs, there were cigarette butts and ash and vomit on her basinet.”
His wife, Mikayla Chochran, is expected to go on trial next year for the same charges.