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corner of the ICU complex. Einhorn was stunned by the sight that greeted him; there, on the bed, a child with blondish red hair was in a prone position on his back. The child was thrashing around from side to side and Einhorn could clearly see dried blood on the inside of the boy’s mouth and around the teeth and lips.
    As Einhorn looked closer he saw what appeared to be second degree sunburn marks on the child’s chest, arms, and legs. Panning his eyes down, he then spotted a cigarette burn on the youngster’s right knee. Another similar mark was near the left ankle. Bruise marks were sprinkled across the toddler’s body in a blotchy pattern. The child’s face was extremely red and the sunburned areas were beginning to peel. The child’s legs were in a rigid position with the toes in a locked position.
    Einhorn had absolutely no doubts he was dealing with an appalling case of child abuse. He picked up the boy’s medical notes and read that little Tommy Whited’s injuries represented, in the view of the attending doctor, a classic example of the battered child syndrome.
    J. M. Einhorn immediately left the ward and went to speak to the boy’s father, Tom Whited. He advised him of his Miranda rights.
    Not surprisingly, Einhorn presumed at first that it was most likely the father had been the perpetrator of these awful, violent acts. But then Tom Whited calmly revealed that this was not his son’s first visit to hospital.
    “Back in January he had the same type of thing,” explained Whited.
    Einhorn was appalled. The father was saying his son had been in hospital for a similar attack before. Einhorn told Whited they would go back to those events after he had given him a detailed account of the current situation.
    As Detective Einhorn talked to Tom Whited, he shook his head in astonishment. Either this man was extremely naive, or he had inflicted the injuries to his own son.
    “Did you do this to Tommy?” asked Einhorn.
    “Oh my God, no,” replied Tom Whited before bursting into tears. “He’s the only thing I have.”
    Einhorn decided to terminate the interview then, and made his way into Room 5 where poor, little battered Tommy Whited lay. Einhorn asked attending nurse Debbie Holstead why his legs and feet were completely rigid.
    “That’s normal when an injury of this nature occurs involving brain damage.” Einhorn then tracked down the notes about little Tommy’s previous hospitalization. Some of the remarks made by nursing staff at the time appalled him.
    He immediately headed for the waiting room of the ICU where Susan Whited was sitting. She waived her Miranda rights and agreed to be questioned.
    At first, Detective Einhorn found it hard to accept that this neat, attractive woman could have done such awful things to a child. His first impression of Susan was of a woman from a good, middle class home. She was well dressed in high heels and was the epitome of good taste, in an Oklahoman sort of way. Einhorn never forgot Susan’s tone when he threw Tom Whited’s accusations of child battery at her at the beginning of his investigation. She would always coolly reply, “I don’t know what he is talking about.”
    She just kept repeating over and over that she did not do it. It had the desired effect at first, because Einhorn did start to wonder about her innocence.
    Susan repeated the story about the shopping cart she had made to her husband. But she admitted that her stepson’s worst injuries had occurred more than twenty-four hours before they finally took the child to the hospital.
    Susan Whited insisted she did not hit the child regularly although she had occasionally used her hand or a belt.
    Einhorn then referred to two statements made by Tommy to hospital staff in January that mentioned how “Mommy pushed me down,” and “Mommy hits me when I don’t do my exercises.”
    Susan was startled. She paused before answering. “Well, when he doesn’t do his exercises I don’t hit him, I just sort