Mother charged in murder trial says toddler fell from changing table

The mother accused of fatally injuring her adopted toddler by slamming the child down on a changing table testified Thursday that the girl fell from the table onto a hardwood floor.

The shattered changing table police seized as evidence had been broken for weeks before her 18-month-old daughter Alexis fell off it, said Jennifer Long, who’s on trial for murder.

But on Jan. 29, 2012, the day the child sustained the fatal brain injury, Long repeatedly said she had no idea how the girl got hurt, telling doctors and police that she was about to change the toddler’s diaper when the girl abruptly slumped over and vomited.

Defense attorney Tim Flournoy asked her why.

“I was confused,” she said. “I knew I shouldn’t have set her up there because it had been broken for three or four weeks.”

She said she had turned away before Alexis fell and did not see it happen.

She recounted how she had always wanted a child, and was delighted when she got the girl in June 2011, having previously visited the baby in foster care: “I was excited. I was really happy.”

She also recalled a family trip on Jan. 29, 2012, when she and her husband took Alexis to Griffin, Ga., where Long grew up. Her husband that Sunday served as visiting pastor at a church there.

They left Columbus about 9 a.m., and Alexis on the way was laughing and trying to talk. She similarly seemed happy at church, glad to see Long’s family and even to speak to strangers. They had lunch at the church and then left for home about 1:30, arriving here about 3 or 3:30 p.m.

Alexis became fussy on the way home, and when they arrived, “she was crying a little bit, but not much,” Long said. As she went to change the diaper, her husband went outside to put a pair of glasses in his car.

Alexis fell off the table while he was outside, she said. “I told him something was wrong,” when he came back in, she said.

“She was making little noises, like gaspy,” Long said of Alexis.

Her husband tried CPR and called 911. When paramedics got there, they checked Alexis and said, “we’ve got to go,” she said.

When they got to the Midtown Medical Center, she told no one Alexis had fallen. “I didn’t tell them the truth,” she said. “I didn’t tell nobody…. I was sad. I was confused. I was holding my emotions inside.”

Doctors here had the girl flown by helicopter to a children’s trauma center in Atlanta, where the parents were informed the toddler was brain-dead.

Long testified she got no sleep from 8 a.m. on the 29th until police finished questioning her around midnight on the 30th. Arrested for murder days later, she remained in jail for six months until she was released on bond. She was unable to attended Alexis’ funeral because she was incarcerated.

On cross-examination, prosecutor George Lipscomb brought out the changing table for Long to examine, noting the top of the table was only three to four feet tall, with Long agreeing that had Alexis stood atop it, her head at most would have fallen five feet to the floor.

Lipscomb noted that one of the physicians who examined the toddler said the injuries were like those of someone who’d fallen five stories.

Then Lipscomb retraced Long’s testimony to point out she had multiple chances to say Alexis had fallen before the couple came back to Columbus from Atlanta, but she did not. She didn’t tell her husband, the paramedics, the emergency room nurses, the Columbus doctors, a Columbus police officer, the nurses in Atlanta or the doctors in Atlanta.

Then Columbus detectives questioned her for nearly four hours at police headquarters, where she had “numerous opportunities” to say what happened, Lipscomb noted, but instead repeated that she did not know, maintaining that stance until she finally changed her account late into the night.

After Long’s testimony, Flournoy called seven witnesses — most of them family — to attest to Long’s good character, including her mother who still lives in Griffin.

“Jennifer has always been my sweetest child,” the mother said, adding her daughter never even fought with her siblings. “Jennifer has never been violent.”

Flournoy elicited such testimony because Lipscomb’s case also involves Facebook photos of Alexis that appear to show bruises and missing hair. The prosecution contends the fatal injury was not an isolated incident, because Long previously had struck the child in anger.

Closing arguments in the trial are expected this morning before Judge Ron Mullins on the Columbus Government Center’s ninth floor.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 3:32 PM with the headline "Mother charged in murder trial says toddler fell from changing table."