Arraignment date set for man charged in death of infant son

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- The last time Amanda Cooper saw her 9-month-old son alive was about 10 p.m. Dec. 7, the Perryville resident told Associate Circuit Judge Gary Kamp on Wednesday. Fourteen hours later the boy's father, Matthew M. Lindsey, telephoned her with the news that their son, Robert M. Lindsey, was dead, she said.

Lindsey, 20, of Perryville is charged with first-degree murder and is in the Perry County Jail on a $500,000 cash bond. If convicted, Lindsey faces a life sentence in prison without eligibility for parole. He was in court Wednesday for his pretrial hearing before Judge Kamp, who bound Lindsey over to circuit court for arraignment March 9 before Judge William Syler.

At the hearing, Cooper testified that she wasn't concerned about leaving her son with Lindsey, who had often cared for the boy alone and never neglected him. She said Lindsey and she had not argued over her visiting with an ex-boyfriend and his sister the night of Dec. 7. They had offered to lend her money to buy Christmas presents for her son, to be repaid when she and Lindsey found jobs, she said.

"I was leaving to go Christmas shopping when I got the phone call to go home" the next day, she said, beginning to cry.

Perryville police Detective Direk Hunt testified that initially both Lindsey and Randi Dosenbach, who rented the apartment Lindsey, Cooper and she shared, lied about the time of death.

The probable-cause statement said Lindsey initially told police he didn't know why his son had died, that other than a bout of diarrhea prior to going to sleep at 10:30 p.m. Dec. 7 the child had slept soundly until 9:30 a.m. the next day.

Two stories

After giving the child a bottle that morning, Lindsey initially told police, he went back to sleep for about 2 1/2 hours, awaking to find the baby cold and unresponsive, police said.

At the hearing, Hunt said the story didn't match the evidence, so he interviewed Lindsey and Dosenbach again. At that time Lindsey admitted that in an effort to quiet the baby's cries he held the child's face against his chest for about five minutes until he stopped moving, Hunt said.

Lindsey then went to sleep for about seven hours, according to the statement, and when he awoke he discovered his son was dead.

Dosenbach, 22, testified she was afraid to tell police whatever she knew about the situation due to a prior conviction for passing bad checks and a fear that she might be charged with child endangerment since the child died in her apartment.

Dosenbach's testimony contrasted with Cooper's regarding Lindsey's mood the night of Dec. 7, when Cooper left the apartment for her ex-boyfriend's residence in Farmington. Dosenbach said Lindsey was so distraught she called his stepmother and father for help.

"Me, personally, I had never seen him like that," she said. "It frightened me."

Lindsey's father came over for a while, Dosenbach said. When she retired at about 4:30 a.m. Dec. 8, she said, Lindsey was calmer and she felt comfortable leaving him alone with his son in the living room.

She said she didn't hear anything until Lindsey woke her up around noon asking for a cigarette and wanting to talk. When she asked him to bring in Robert he returned to the living room and started screaming that the baby wasn't breathing, she testified.

Dosenbach said she called 911 and both she and Lindsey tried to get the baby to breathe.

Cause of death

Farmington forensic pathologist Dr. Russell D. Deidiker testified he initially ruled the cause of death was undetermined. Later he told authorities injuries found on the child and being held against the father's chest as Lindsey described to police could've caused his death. He told police that injuries on the child were consistent with Lindsey's statement.

carel@semissourian.com

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