Decades after shaking baby, dad jailed again: Case centers on 19-year-old who died from trauma suffered during infancy
What could Christina have become? And I feel so sorry for the loss her adoptive mother must feel, after caring for a child no one else wanted for so long, one that never learned to walk, talk, or sit by herself, who beat the odds and lived 19 years when all the experts thought she would die soon after being injured severely by her own father.
Mike Wells was 19 when he shook his 2-month-old daughter and covered her mouth to stop her from crying. He and Tina Wells were convicted of aggravated child abuse in 1989, and each served less than a year in prison.
They went on with their lives, having several more children together. They raised their growing family in weathered mobile homes in rural Pasco County northwest of Tampa, and then in central Georgia where Mike Wells worked for awhile at a used-tire shop. Neither got in serious trouble again with the law.
And that might have been the end of it — a forever-sorry father having served his time and having to live with what he'd done to his child.
Lives take a turn
But when Christina died on March 15, 2006, at age 19, a medical examiner ruled the case a homicide: The brain injury her father inflicted almost two decades earlier had caused her death.
The same prosecutor who'd sent Mike Wells away in 1989 came after him again, this time getting a grand jury indictment charging him with murdering his daughter.
Wells pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years as part of an agreement with the prosecutors that allows him no appeals. Before his daughter died, he was able to visit her and see how severely he hurt her.
Please...no matter how angry you may be at a child, think of Christina and the terrible price that she paid for a young father's impatience. And kudos to Maureen Welch and her late husband for giving Christina a loving home, who patiently cared for her, who treated her lovingly and gave her a life beyond what she might have had in an institution.
I never had a child. I don't know what kind of parent I would be, but I never thought I'd be good enough at it to try. But if I had a little girl or boy right now--after reading this story--the first thing I would do is hug him or her and not let go for awhile.
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