AUTHORITIES BELIEVE CHILD'S DEATH A HOMICIDE

Two-year old Desire Wims died on April 23 from injuries to her head that Cape Girardeau police described as blunt trauma.

But an autopsy showed the girl also had an acute stomach hemorrhage; three lacerations to the rectum; one hemorrhage to the posterior hymen; and multiple acute contusions to the upper back, the rear left shoulder and the left side of her face.

It looks as if someone is getting away with Desire's death, said the pathologist who examined the body, Michael Zaricor of the Mineral Area Regional Medical Center in Farmington.

"If this was limited to one suspect, this would be a homicide," Zaricor said. "But you can't charge two or three people with the same crime."

In reports of criminal activity in Cape Girardeau last year, police have listed the death as a homicide, Sgt. Carl Kinnison said.

The two 22 year-olds who were responsible for Desire were arrested last week and charged with second-degree endangerment of a child's welfare, a class A misdemeanor that is punishable by up to one year in the county jail and a $1,000 fine.

Gwendolyn Wims, the girl's mother, and Telly S. Caldwell, a friend of the mother's, were charged. They are out of jail on $5,000 bonds.

Police reported that on April 23 Wims called 911 and reported that her daughter wasn't breathing. The two had been staying at Caldwell's Cape Girardeau apartment at 2854 Whitener.

The child died at 9:40 a.m., about an hour after being transported by ambulance to St. Francis Medical Center.

Police, the prosecutor and pathologist are doing all they can to discover who is responsible for the death.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle "is giving it all that he can based on the evidence that's available," Zaricor said.

Swingle said he can only base criminal charges on what the evidence supports.

The job of anyone in law enforcement is to solve crimes, so Desire's death has been difficult for investigators for different reasons, said Rick Hetzel, police chief.

"Anytime you have the death of a child it's frustrating," Hetzel said, "and especially when you don't have the evidence to prove something one way or another."

Police are continuing to work the case as hard as they can, he said.

Cases in which police are unable to charge one person with a crime happen frequently when the elderly, mentally impaired or children are victims, he said.

Hetzel used a fictitious example of an elderly woman who was beaten excessively at a nursing home to illustrate. Suspects end up pointing fingers at each other, while in the middle is a victim who is not competent to explain what happened.

The state Division of Family Services offers the State Technical Assistance Team, or STAT, to help law enforcement agencies investigate child fatalities. It has operated since 1991, when Missouri required every county to form a child fatality review board.

The boards, made up of medical, police and other professionals, review the investigations of any suspicious death of a child or teen-ager under 18, said Deb Hendricks, a Department of Social Services spokeswoman.

Cape Girardeau County's 21-member board, led by Swingle, had reviewed the death of Desire last Spring and recommended additional investigation by medical examiners.

Members of STAT usually are invited by police or prosecutors when a child's death involves multiple victims or suspects, said Rodney Jones, an investigative supervisor. They also handle crimes involving persons of prominence, he said.

Jones had recently assisted in the conviction of the mayor of Reed Springs on child exploitation charges in federal court.

The investigation of a child's death is more complicated since the body has typically been moved to several locations, Jones said.

"If you have an adult, law enforcement can usually get to the scene while the body is still there," he said. "But, as is natural, you have this outpouring of desire to save the child, so he's taken from a home to a car to a hospital, and you end up with multiple crime scenes."

Most homicides are proved through a combination of witnesses, circumstantial evidence and physical evidence, Swingle said.

Since genetic DNA evidence made its way into courtrooms in the 1980s, Swingle has used it on several occasions to prove a murder.

In the 1997 murder of Gary Sams, Swingle used a cigarette that killer Robert Lizenbee had smoked after the stabbing to convict him. Since DNA is in saliva, the cigarette allowed forensic scientists to link Lizenbee to the murder, Swingle said.

DNA evidence also provoked a confession from Samuel J. Denny, who sexually abused and then smothered his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter in 1994, the prosecutor said. Denny received life in prison without parole.

A witness is the best evidence but seldom found. A lack of witnesses is the most common problem for a homicide case, Swingle said.

"It's like with the JonBenet Ramsey murder in Colorado," he said. "The only eyewitness has her mouth closed forever."