WoW claims another childs life

Jury rules gaming Kings Bay sailor guilty in son's death
Baby was surrounded by pillows while father played 'World of Warcraft' game.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-04-01/story/jury-rules-gaming-kings-bay-sailor-guilty-sons-death#ixzz1IIHmldx9

WOODBINE - A Camden County jury found a Kings Bay sailor guilty of involuntary manslaughter and three other charges in the death of his 11-week-old son, who prosecutors asserted suffocated while the man played an online video game.

The eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated about 21/2 hours before delivering its verdicts finding Andrew Warner, 29, guilty of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree cruelty to children, reckless conduct and making false statements to law enforcement officers.

Superior Court Judge Anthony Harrison, who presided over the two-day trial, allowed Warner to remain free on bail until Wednesday, when he is to report to the Camden County jail. Harrison did not set a sentencing date for Warner, who could be sentenced to 10 years in prison on the involuntary manslaughter conviction alone.

Warner's wife, Kristy, who also faces a charge of making a false statement, testified in his defense Thursday.

Although she testified that she did not see her husband playing the game "World of Warcraft" the day their son Brandin died, she did acknowledge the game had become a sore point in their marriage.

Under cross-examination Thursday by District Attorney Jackie Johnson, Kristy Warner acknowledged that she had told her husband he played the game to the point he neglected his family, which includes three daughters.

"It seemed he spent more time with that than he did us," she said.

Brandin Warner died Jan. 16, 2009, as his father, a Kings Bay sailor, babysat him at their Kingsland home.

Investigators testified on the first day of the trial that Andrew Warner said on the day of his son's death that he had fed his son, played with him and then put him on his and his wife's bed with pillows around him so he would not roll off. But when a completed autopsy report arrived six months later saying Brandin had suffocated, Andrew Warner acknowledged to Naval Criminal Investigative Services that he played "World of Warcraft" longer than he had admitted earlier and had seen his son with a pillow over his head. He left the pillow where it was and went back to playing the video game, investigators said.

That was the evidence that made her office "very happy with the verdict," District Attorney Jackie Johnson said.

"That's why we brought the case, the failure to act, to take minimal steps to make sure the baby could breathe," she said.

Wife testifies

Kristy Warner did back her husband's statement to police that he had fed his infant son during the afternoon. During one of her calls home that day as she shopped, their daughter Alexia had to hold the telephone for her dad because he was on the sofa feeding Brandin, she testified.

She testified that she found that their son had died sometime around 4:30 p.m. as she went into the bedroom to dress him for the short trip to her parents' house for dinner. Kristy Warner testified she had passed by her son at least a couple of times earlier and did not notice he was not breathing until she sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on his back.

"I freaked," she said, relating her and her husband's frantic attempts to revive Brandin and to get help for him.

But she also testified about the odd circumstances of her son's birth, saying she didn't know she was pregnant until she gave birth at home Oct. 28, 2008, to an 8-pound, 2-ounce boy.

She had gone to the doctor in September and was told she was not pregnant but had a progesterone deficiency, for which she was prescribed birth control pills, Kristy Warner testified.

But with her family having financial trouble, she worried about caring for a fourth, unplanned child and went on the Internet looking at adoption sites, she testified.

After she and Brandin went to the hospital, she spoke with state Department of Family and Children Services about the possibility of putting her son up for adoption, Kristy Warner said.

"I wanted what was best for him,'' she said.

After speaking with Navy social workers and her mother, she and her husband were certain by the end of the day they wanted to keep their son.

"My mom came to the hospital, told me we would have support. All we had to do was love him," she said.

And her husband did love their son, Kristy Warner said.

"He adored him. He was his boy. He spent more time with that baby than he did with any of the other three," she said.

The other three, daughters 8, 6 and 4, are all in her mother's custody now. As she gave her children's ages, she ended with, "Brandin is almost 2."

Andrew and Kristy Warner both cried as she described their son's death.

She has been charged with making a false statement for telling an emergency dispatcher she found Brandin in his bassinet although she and her husband said later he was on their bed.