Shaken baby syndrome | Wrongly accused in the midst of mourning

Four years ago, Mario Fiorini was accused of killing his baby by shaking him. He was wiretapped. He was detained. His photo was published in the newspaper. Then, all charges were dropped after the treating neurologist’s diagnosis, which no one had taken into account, was revealed in court. The baby died of complications from an illness that doctors failed to detect in time, he believes.

In the opinion of D^r Guillaume Sébire, a neurologist specializing in non-accidental head injuries and strokes in children and an expert witness before the courts of several countries, the case is not unique. There is, in Quebec and elsewhere, an overdiagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, he said in an interview with The Press. Parents are “very likely wrongly accused” (see other text).

The parents and grandparents of little Lorenzo Fiorini, who died on June 13, 2019, are suing the Sainte-Agathe Multiservice Health and Social Services Center, their son’s pediatrician, a doctor from the Montreal Children’s Hospital as well as as four investigators from the Sûreté du Québec for a little more than $1 million.

A nebulous death

Even today, the circumstances surrounding the death and the investigation into little Lorenzo are unclear.

The baby was 4 months old when he was transferred from Sainte-Adèle hospital to the Montreal Children’s Hospital. His parents had taken him to the Sainte-Adèle emergency room twice the day before. He was vomiting, his temperature was abnormal, he was inconsolable. They had been sent home.

On June 9, 2019, on their third visit to the emergency room, the boy was having seizures so intense that the medical team was unable to control them. When he arrived in Montreal, it was too late. He was suffering from a serious hemorrhage. The brain damage was irreversible. The parents made the difficult decision to end the treatments.

Since Lorenzo’s symptoms were consistent with those of a shaken baby, he was examined by a doctor from the hospital’s child protection team. She concluded that the young patient had indeed died as a result of shaken baby syndrome and reported the case to the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ).

The D^r Guillaume Sébire was the neurologist on call when Lorenzo was hospitalized in intensive care. He expressed another opinion. According to him, the baby suffered from an illness from which his mother also suffered: intracranial hypertension caused by excess fluid in the meninges. He was at risk of hemorrhage. Lorenzo had been dropped by his father while in his car seat a few days earlier. The shock could have triggered the brain bleeding that led to his death.

However, according to the lawsuit, this divergent diagnosis does not appear to have been included in the report made to the authorities. A report from the child protection clinic at the Montreal Children’s Hospital consulted by The Press doesn’t mention it either.

This omission then percolated throughout the investigation, both police and medical. Even the parents were not aware of their boy’s possible illness before the testimony of Dr.^r Sébire in court, two years later.

The neurologist indicates that he has never been questioned by the police.

The pathologist’s report, produced a few days after death and that The Press obtained, confirms the diagnosis of shaken baby. But he does not mention the opinion of D^r Sebire. On the contrary, the pathologist writes “that the investigations carried out at the hospital did not reveal any previous predisposition of this child to spontaneously develop this type of lesion”.

The coroner, whose report was submitted in September 2023, also concluded that there was non-accidental head trauma.

The coroner did not respond to our requests for an interview. We wanted to know if he had had access to the D’s notes^r Sébire and, if so, why he chose not to mention them, even to dismiss them.

Months of investigation

The investigation into Lorenzo’s death began before he even took his last breath.

As they prepared to accompany their son to death, three days after his hospitalization, the parents, Mario Fiorini and Sarah Galuppi, were questioned at length at the hospital by investigators from the Sûreté du Québec.

“ [Le policier] said to me: ‟I hope you know that we are going to have to do an autopsy on Lorenzo, which means that we will have to send parts of his body all over Quebec. But I promise to bring you back each piece,” the mother remembers. My son hasn’t died yet and he tells me that. Seems to me like that’s something you don’t say to a parent. » A few hours later, the baby died in her arms.

When the parents return home, the house is upside down. Investigators have just carried out a search there. The baby’s room was not spared. The mattress is on the floor. The drawers are open. The floor is littered with clothes and toys.

In the following months, parents and grandparents will be interviewed. Certain elements arouse the suspicions of investigators. Notably, “shaken baby” was part of the parents’ search history before their son’s death. It was while researching the cause of Lorenzo’s incessant crying that Google directed them to this topic, they say.

Microphones will be placed in the family home and the photo and name of Mario Fiorini will be provided by the police to a media outlet to move the investigation forward. In the wake of the article, Sarah Galuppi lost her job in accounting in a large ski center in the Laurentians.

Unanswered questions

All the while, Lorenzo’s parents can’t get their questions answered. They asked in vain to know the results of the autopsy. In their minds and in those of the police, their son died after being shaken. The couple suspects each other, but also suspects family members who looked after the baby before his death. The family is torn apart.

On December 18, the parents were arrested and questioned again. According to the suit, M^me Galuppi was questioned for 11 hours and her partner for 12 hours. Repeated requests to consult a lawyer were reportedly ignored. Sarah Galuppi says that the police asked her to record a video in which she told her lover “that he could confess, that she was going to stay with him and give him other children”.

Mario Fiorini claims to have been told “either you sink it or you take the blame”, and “someone will have to take the blame”. He ends up confessing to the actions he is accused of.

The investigators give him a doll and ask him to mime the gestures made on his son. He is formally accused and imprisoned. He will remain there for five days, until the family posts $10,000 bail.

Tunnel vision

The defense is organized. The father takes a polygraph test. Result: “Mr. Fiorini did not at any time cause injury or shake Lorenzo.” Please note that a polygraph does not serve as evidence in court. “There is no chance that this guy killed anyone, even less his son,” reiterates the polygraphist, Jacques Landry, himself a former member of the Sûreté du Québec, in an interview with The Press. He denounces a “disproportionate” investigation and tunnel vision on the part of the police.

For parents, the testimony of D^r Guillaume Sébire during the preliminary investigation in 2021 changes everything. First, they glimpse for the first time the possibility that their boy was not mistreated. But also, that he could have been saved.

Indeed, the neurologist mentions in his report that he found several clues in the medical history that could have raised the alarm. First, the curve of Lorenzo’s head circumference, measured during several medical visits since his birth, showed that the skull was growing too quickly. Then, Lorenzo had been suffering from projectile vomiting for months, which had been mentioned several times to the pediatrician. In one photo, we see that the baby had a “lying” look. “of the sun”, i.e. low pupils. All symptoms which, taken together, point to intracranial hypertension.

The charges against Mario Fiorini will be officially withdrawn in March 2023.

The Sûreté du Québec, the CISSS des Laurentides and the Montreal Children’s Hospital did not wish to comment on this matter, since civil legal proceedings are underway.