ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A woman was convicted Friday of third-degree murder in the death of her 3-year-old adopted son 22 years ago, ending a trial sparked by the natural mother's suspicions the boy died of child abuse.
The case marked the oldest murder prosecution ever to come to trial in Minnesota.
Lois Jurgens, 62, of Stillwater, chewed gum impassively as the jury announced its verdict, finding her guilty of third-degree murder in the 1965 death of her adopted son, Dennis. Under state law, third-degree murder denotes an unintentional slaying.
A coronor originally attributed the 3-year-old boy's death to an infection caused by a perforated bowel, but it was not until last year that Ramsey County Medical Examiner Michael McGee ruled the death a homicide.
Prosecutors said the injury was caused by a severe beating with a blunt instrument. Prosecutors also said the child had been hospitalized for burns to the genitals caused by child abuse.
McGee initiated an investigation into the death after the boy's natural mother, Jerry Sherwood of St. Paul, told him last year of her suspicions that the child may have been murdered. She had sought in 1980 to meet her child only to learn he was dead.
Sherwood was an unwed teenager when she gave birth the boy in 1962 and gave him up for adoption. She later married the father of the child.
Sherwood, her face streaked with tears at the conclusion of the trial, said brining the case to court, 'Was the hardest thing I've done in my life. I had to hear what he had to endure in his short life.
'Maybe it (the verdict) will open eyes. If somebody would have protected Denny maybe he would be here now.'
The jury was to resume deliberations Monday to determine the sanity of Jurgens. Defense lawyer Doug Thomson said he would seek to prove Jurgens was insane at the time of the death. Acquittals in insanity trials have been rare in Minnesota.
In his final arguments Friday, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Clayton Robinson charged Jurgens performed 'unspeakable acts of barbarism and cruelty' in her 'so-called' mothering of Dennis, who died two years after Jurgens and her husband, Harold, adopted him.
'In his short span of life he (Dennis) endured more psychological and physical torture and pain than most adults do in a lifetime,' Robinson said, adding that from the moment Dennis entered the Jurgens' house 'it was his destiny to die.'
Thomson told the jury the case is not a homicide. 'This is a case of abuse,' Thomson said, 'abuse of Dennis, abuse of reason and common sense. We are here because of the whim and caprice of McGee, who on his own changed the death certificate to homicide.'
Thomson, who called only one witness before resting his case Wednesday, said the prosecution failed to present any evidence to indicate his client killed the boy. He admitted Jurgens was a child abuser, but said 'battered child syndrome is not a cause of death.'
He said the abuse charges were exaggerated and the 25 prosecution witnesses 'all had an ax to grind.'
