Jurors began deliberations in the manslaughter trial of babysitter Dixie
Denise Villa after hearing closing arguments late Wednesday afternoon in the February 2019 “Benadryl” toxicity death of 7-month-old Abigail Lobisch.
Deputy Prosecutor Tiffany Kaeo told jurors, “Abigail
Lobisch would be 6 years old today if she were alive … Abi never got the chance to grow up.”
She showed a photo of the smiling infant taken
Feb. 22, 2019, then one when she was found dead Feb. 24, 2019, in Villa’s Aliamanu
Military Housing home,
saying, “Abi is dead because of a series of choices the defendant made.”
Those choices include throwing out of her home on Feb. 23, 2019, two daughters and friend, who were visiting from Arizona and New York and were helping watch four children under the age of 5— Abigail, her 2-year-old brother, Villa’s daughter, who has Down syndrome, and her son.
She made a choice to
give the three small children
iPads. “She made a choice to give Abi diphenhydramine. She made a choice to sleep with the baby cradled in her arms.”
Villa, then 40, told police she found Abi face down the morning of Feb. 24, 2019, in Villa’s bed, where she slept with all four children in her master bedroom.
Anna Lobisch dropped her baby and son off with Villa at the Aulani Disney Resort &Spa at 10:45 a.m.
Feb. 23, 2019. After spending a day at the pool with the three older girls and the four younger ones, Villa allowed the older girls to spend
20 minutes at the slides while she watched the young ones. An argument broke out because Villa was upset, and said the three older ones must pack and leave.
They returned to Villa’s house and Abi was crying, according to Villa’s daughter’s friend Briana Calderon’s testimony, but Abi stopped crying by the time they finished packing and left by 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.
“She couldn’t handle four kids by herself,” Kaeo said. That’s why she confirmed the older girls would be helping to watch them prior to agreeing to babysit, she said.
Villa was Abigail’s regular babysitter, but Anna Lobisch had asked her to watch the children Feb. 23
Villa was indicted
five months later on
second-degree manslaughter after police received autopsy results, including toxicology test results.
Jury instructions allow jurors to find Villa guilty of the lesser crimes of second-degree assault or second-degree reckless endangering.
Kaeo said, “It’s easier to say maybe there’s reasonable doubt,” but it “doesn’t make it the right decision,” and implored them to use reason and common sense.
Kaeo said crimes that happen in a home “between two people are very rarely seen by others … You can solve a puzzle without knowing every single letter and every single number.”
“You have evidence from first responders,” witnesses Briana Calderon and Anna Lobisch (Abigail’s mother), the state’s doctors, text messages and photographs, Kaeo said.
But “the defense is blaming Abi’s mom for taking a drug she might have been allergic to, blaming the medical examiner” for determining the cause of death as diphenhydramine (the antihistamine in Benadryl) toxicity, Kaeo said.
Megan Kau, Villa’s court-appointed attorney, said: “Denise is not guilty because after all these witnesses, no one has told us how Abigail Lobisch died.”
She repeatedly said there were no witnesses and no one can say what specific brand of diphenhydramine she died of or whether it was pills, liquid or topical.
“There is the same amount of evidence against Denise as these five
individuals,” Kau said, naming Anna Lobisch, Villa’s older daughters, Ariana Rivera and Amaya Gordon, and Calderon, as well as James Lobisch, Abigail’s father, who could have given her the drug.
However, James Lobisch had guard duty that weekend, and Villa kicked out the three older girls, as Calderon had testified and left by 8 p.m., Kaeo said.
Kau accused Anna Lobisch of lying when giving reasons she needed a babysitter that weekend. She testified she was going to school and needed to study, but did say under cross-examination her husband physically abused her and she wanted to spend time with a male friend.
Kau questioned Lobisch about text messages with a friend who had concerns about her taking Tylenol PM, since it contained diphenhydramine.
A defense expert said because Anna Lobisch was
allergic to Benadryl, she may lack the enzyme to break down the drug, which could have been passed on to her baby.
He couldn’t say whether the enzyme could break down acetaminophine and not Benadryl.
She called the issue of
Tylenol PM a red herring and misleading.
Dr. Jon Gates, who performed the autopsy, testified there was no acetaminophine in Abigail’s system.
Kaeo said in rebuttal, “We do know how she died. She died of diphenhydramine toxicity. That’s the cause of her death.”
In the 12 hours prior to Abigail’s death, no one else was present who could have given her the antihistamine, she said.
“You do not need to decide whether it is pill or topical or oral,” Kaeo said. “What you do need to agree on … is that it was the defendant who gave her the diphenhydramine, and it was the defendant who caused her death.”
“Breast milk cannot excrete enough to cause a fatal dose of diphenhydramine and Abi does not have a metabolic disorder,” Kaeo said. “The only metabolic disorder that was identified does not affect the body’s ability to break down the enzymes in question for
diphenhydramine.”
Kaeo discounted Kau’s attempt to disprove a pediatric emergency physician’s estimate that it would take 30 doses of diphenhydramine. She made him pour 30 20 ml cups amounting to 60 ml and comparing it to
4 ounces of formula, when a 5 ml cup child-size dose should have been used.
Villa did not take the stand because the state could have asked her about how she told Calderon to lie to military police Feb. 21, 2019, to investigate complaints she ran an unlicensed day care on military housing.
