Murder charged in '89 case

A Bristol man was charged with second-degree murder yesterday, more than 20 years after he shook a baby so violently that the boy became blind and deaf and lived in pain until he died in 2008.

Bruce Watson, 46, of 300 Lake St. in Bristol, was arrested and charged with the murder of Brian Wiggin, who was 4½ months old in December 1989 when Watson shook and beat him so hard that it left him a quadriplegic, prosecutors say.

At the time, then-Tilton police Chief George Prescott called it the worst case of child abuse he'd seen in 18 years in law enforcement.

"I've been waiting 23 years for this day," said Tammy Perreault, Wiggin's mother who held a photo of her son at the district court in Franklin yesterday afternoon during Watson's arraignment.

Because pleas are not entered on felony charges at the district court level, Watson did not enter one. A probable cause hearing was scheduled for Aug. 30 at 9 a.m.

Suzanne Ketteridge, the public defender representing him at the arraignment, declined to comment.

Judge Edward Gordon ordered Watson held without bail because the district court does not have jurisdiction over bail in murder cases.

To make their case, prosecutors need to show that Watson, then 23, was aware that his actions could cause the death of another and disregarded the risk.

Watson did not deliberately set out to hurt the baby, as a first-degree murder charge would have required, but was acting out of frustration in December 1989, authorities have said.

Watson, who was dating Perreault at the time and sometimes babysat her two children when she went to work, told the police weeks after the assault that he grew frustrated by Wiggin's crying.

Watson grabbed Wiggin by the chest and shook him until he stopped crying, according to court records. The baby's head shook back and forth. Then Watson threw the baby on a loveseat and heard a snap. The child went stiff and then started to spit up. Watson then took him to the bathroom, held him over the toilet and shook him a little more until he threw up, according to the same court records.

That assault eventually caused Wiggin's death in 2008, Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan Morrell said yesterday. An autopsy was performed a day after Wiggin died, Morrell told reporters after the arraignment. The cause of death, she said, was "homicide as a result of catastrophic brain injuries."

Watson pleaded guilty to second degree assault in 1991 and received a 2½- to seven-year sentence. He eventually served about four.

The new prosecution does not subject Watson to double jeopardy because of a 2008 New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling, Morrell said.

In that case, Walter Hutchinson of Epping was charged with murder more than a decade after he choked and beat his ex-girlfriend, Kimberly Ernest, who spent the rest of her life in a vegetative state.

Hutchinson was convicted of attempted murder, served 15 years and was almost eligible for parole when Ernest died and prosecutors charged him with murder.

Hutchinson appealed, but the state's high court eventually ruled in favor of the prosecution, saying the state could not have tried him for murder in 1991, when he committed the crime, because Ernest was not dead. Hutchinson, they said, had not yet completed the crime of murder.

The "societal interest in prosecuting this defendant for an alleged homicide completed after his initial trial outweighs the defendant's interest in finality," the court said in its ruling.

To build the case against Watson, Morrell said investigators spent more than two years investigating both his life - during which he suffered frequent seizures - and his death.

"These shaken baby cases are very difficult," Morrell said. (next page »)

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