Vernal foster mother to stand trial on child abuse homicide accusations, judge rules

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A judge ordered a Vernal foster mother, Angela Accuttoroop, to stand trial for child abuse homicide on Tuesday.
• Eighth District Judge Gregory Lamb cited an inconsistent story and an autopsy report that injuries to 3-year-old Quinn Cesspooch would not come from a shower fall.
• Accuttoroop is allowed to be released on bail to home confinement before her jury trial next May.

VERNAL — A foster mother was ordered to stand trial on Tuesday after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to support the charge accusing her of causing the death of a boy in her care, 3-year-old Quinn Cesspooch.

Angela Accuttoroop, 51, of Vernal pleaded not guilty to child abuse homicide, a second-degree felony, and was scheduled for a jury trial next May.

Eighth District Judge Gregory Lamb said the injuries on the boy were not consistent with the story the foster mother had told officers, and her story had changed. Lamb cited testimony from medical examiner Brent Davis that the multiple head injuries that caused Cesspooch's death were not consistent with a fall from less than 10 feet.

The judge said evidence shows the boy was fatally injured by blunt force trauma to his head while in the care of Accuttoroop, and only the two of them were living at her home.

Lamb also cited a neighbor who reported a conversation with the woman shortly after the boy's death, where she could barely understand the woman but thought she said: "I killed him, I killed him, I killed him."

Bail now allowed

The judge also ruled on Tuesday that Accuttoroop could be released on bail with an ankle monitor and kept on home confinement. Lamb said Utah's law requires him to allow her release, unless he finds there is no way to protect the public in doing so, or that she is likely to flee.

While released on bail, Accuttoroop will be required to stay within Uintah County or stay overnight on tribal land. He said she can only leave her home for doctors' appointments and court appearances and cannot have contact with anyone under 18. Lamb also said if her foster care license has not already been suspended, she needs to surrender it, along with any licenses for similar services, like day care.

Cesspooch's mother and grandmother asked Lamb not to allow Accuttoroop to be placed on bail, citing worries that she may hurt others, and they wouldn't feel safe if she were out of custody.

Lamb recalled that he had previously denied the woman bail, saying he considered more extensive requests from both women to keep her in custody when making his decision.

In over her head?

On Thursday, deputy Uintah County attorney Jarell Dillman questioned three officers who investigated the case and a man who performed an autopsy. He said Cesspooch died through "criminal negligence."

"We believe that this is probably the result of someone who got over their head," he said.

Davis, a Utah medical examiner and forensic pathologist, said the boy had bruises on either side of his head, as well as injuries on the front and the back and a bruise inside his mouth. He said the boy's brain was swelling as a response to an injury, and he had bleeding outside the brain's surface that was likely a response to a blunt force injury.

He would have expected these injuries to come from something like a car accident, he said, not from a fall while seated in a shower, or even from falling after jumping from a ledge in a shower, which would be "extremely unlikely."

Marco Candelas, one of the responding officers, testified about finding Accuttoroop doing CPR on an unresponsive child. He testified that Accuttoroop claimed the child had fallen in the shower and she had called 911 within a few minutes and therefore had not dried him off. However, the officer said the child's clothing, hair and skin appeared to be dry.

He testified that the woman was "very emotional and crying."

Dallon Collom, another officer, said Accuttoroop told him the boy had been placed in her care about six weeks earlier, that he had been having behavioral issues and caring for him had been hard with her health issues.

The officer said she told police she reached for the shampoo and heard a thud. She told them the boy was then on the shower's floor, leaning against the stool, "gasping for breath" with water hitting his face, Collom testified. She said she then took him to the living room.

After telling Accuttoroop about the medical examiner's findings, Collom said, "She became upset … I can't remember what her words were, but she told me this is really bad."

'Speculative' theory

Accuttoroop's attorney, Theodore Peterson, argued that much of the evidence the prosecutor presented to the judge was "highly speculative" and relied on others' testimony. He said the "I killed him" statement from the neighbor was not reliable, and that the neighbor said she could not really tell what was being said.

He said there were a lot of things that didn't make sense, and stressed that it was not his client's job to answer any of those questions, but prosecutors'.

The judge did not immediately rule after hearing the testimony on Thursday, but asked to hold another hearing on Tuesday to give him time to review Cesspooch's medical records and other written evidence submitted during the hearing.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Emily Ashcraft

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Emily Ashcraft is a reporter for KSL. She covers issues in state courts, health and religion. In her spare time, Emily enjoys crafting, cycling and raising chickens.