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A Penobscot County jury will determine whether a Brewer father caused the death of his 6-week-old son, or if the child died on June 1, 2021, from a sudden stroke.
The manslaughter trial of Ronald Harding, 38, began Monday at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. A verdict is expected Thursday or Friday.
Harding has pleaded not guilty.
Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin said the baby, Jaden Harding, died of brain damage after being violently shaken. Harding has denied harming the child. He pleaded not guilty to manslaughter in 2021.
“Jaden was a happy, healthy baby who was cared for by his stay-at-home mom,” Robbin told the jury of nine women and six men, including three alternates. “His mother handed the baby to his father to help the three older children take showers for school the next day.”
Defense Attorney William Ashe of Ellsworth said that two tragedies brought the jury to the courthouse. The first was the death of Jaden Harding, and the second is that Harding was changed with a crime he did not commit.
“The clinicians missed the actual cause of death,” Ashe told the jury. “Jaden had classic signs of sepsis brought on by infection that caused a stroke.”
Harding told police the baby suddenly went limp in his arms.
Initially Harding was released on $3,000 cash bail, but it was revoked less than six weeks later after he had contact with the girl’s mother, which was forbidden under his bail conditions. Harding has been held without bail since July 20, 2021, at Penobscot County Jail in Bangor.
The medical examiner found that the baby died of bleeding in his brain from inflicted injuries consistent with violent shaking.
Harding was living with the baby’s mother on Getchell Road in Brewer when Jaden died.
Harding called 911 the evening of May 31, 2021, to report that his infant was unresponsive and not breathing, according to Maine State Police. The boy was taken to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in critical condition and died the next day, on June 1.
Harding and the boy’s mother told Maine State Police detectives that the family went to Newport on Memorial Day and spent the afternoon at Harding’s mother’s house. When they returned home about 6 p.m., the mother carried the sleeping baby in his car seat into the Brewer house, the affidavit said.
The boy’s mother allegedly told detectives that she held Jaden for a few minutes before handing him to Harding once inside. The baby’s eyes were open and he was smiling and cooing at her before she went to give baths to her other children, she told investigators.
About 20 minutes later, Jaden went limp and Harding took him to the bathroom where the boy’s mother was bathing the other children, who are not related to Harding, the court document said. She took Jaden while Harding called 911.
She heard Jaden crying while she was in the bathroom with her other children, but let Harding tend to the boy rather than intervene, the affidavit said. She described it as a “normal baby cry.”
After Harding’s arrest in early June 2021, two other Maine parents were charged in the deaths of their children.
Old Town mother Hillary Goding, 30, pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter in the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Hailey. She is serving a 26-year sentence with all but 19 years suspended, followed by six years of probation.
In October, a Waldo County jury found Jessica Trefethen, 36, guilty of murder in the death of her 3-year-old son Maddox Williams in Stockton Springs. She was sentenced to 47 years in prison.
If convicted of manslaughter, Harding faces up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $50,000. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 if convicted of violating bail.
