Girl Labeled PVS Able To Testify In Abuse Case

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/05/01/poutre_abuse/

BOSTON, MASS—As prosecutors prepare for a fall trial in one of the
state’s most horrific child abuse cases, the child at the center of the
case who had been incorrectly labeled as being in a persistent
vegetative state, is providing crucial testimony about how she was
routinely subjected to physical punishment by her adoptive mother and
stepfather.

Haleigh Poutre, now 14, has been in a pediatric rehabilitation hospital
in Brighton, Mass., for the past two years after suffering a near fatal
head injury in September 2005 at age 11.

The case arose when Haleigh’s adoptive mother, Holli Strickland and
stepfather. Jason Strickland were charged with assault and battery after
she was hospitalized with serious brain injuries and placed on life
support in September 2005. The couple took Haleigh to the hospital with
bruises, broken teeth, swollen knees and a sheared brain stem.

They were living in western Massachusetts are the time of Haleigh’s
traumatic brain injury.

Two weeks later, the adoptive mother was found dead, killed by her
grandmother who then killed herself, and the Department of Social
Services as the girl’s guardian requested the court’s permission to...