‘I never shook him’: Woman asks court to quash 2002 conviction in infant son’s death

Lawyers for the Crown argue an Ontario woman branded a killer in the death of her infant son more than two decades ago should instead be acquitted now that expert evidence pointing to shaken baby syndrome has been “wholly undermined.”

Jennifer Gaskin was found guilty of manslaughter in 2002 in the death of her 2 1/2-month-old son Joseph after two medical experts testified the newborn had died as a result of shaken baby syndrome — a term largely abandoned later as the science behind the diagnosis was increasingly questioned.

Gaskin is asking Ontario’s top court to quash her conviction after the case was reviewed as part of a provincewide investigation into shaken-baby cases, a process that cast serious doubts on the medical evidence in her trial and led her to seek new expert analysis.

In written submissions filed ahead of an appeal hearing this week, the Crown argues that in light of the “overwhelming weight of current expert opinion,” Gaskin’s conviction “cannot and should not stand.”

Gaskin’s lawyers also argue she should be acquitted as a result of the new evidence.

Gaskin, who served 18 months of her nearly two-year sentence in prison, says she was labelled a monster after her son died.

“As I have always said, I did nothing to cause Joseph’s death, yet I have been branded as a killer for all these years,” she said in an affidavit filed with the court.

“I never struck Joseph and I never shook him. I did nothing to cause his death. I have never felt able to breathe freely because I feel everyone sees me to be a monster.”

Her two other children, a daughter roughly a year older than Joseph and a son born while Gaskin was on bail, were taken by child welfare services and adopted by families in Dryden, Ont., according to court documents.

“I did not see them grow up and that has hurt a lot. For 20 years, I missed them and wondered how they were,” Gaskin said in the affidavit.

Joseph was born more than nine weeks early and spent the first two months of his life in hospital, court documents say. He had been vomiting for days when, just weeks after he was discharged, he suddenly stopped breathing while at home with Gaskin’s partner, the documents say.

The baby was taken to hospital but could not be revived and was pronounced dead on July 2, 1999.

Neither Gaskin nor her partner reported any injuries or accidents in their statements to police, the documents say. An autopsy found several injuries, however, including diffuse cerebral injury, spinal cord injury, ocular injury, and a cervical and vertebral injury, they say.

The cause of death was deemed to be a head injury from shaking and the two experts who testified at trial concluded that Gaskin, as Joseph’s primary caregiver, was the only one who could have shaken him on multiple occasions, the documents say.

Years later, the Ontario government launched an inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology after a coroner’s review found significant flaws in the work of Dr. Charles Smith, a prominent figure in the field and the former head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

The inquiry was followed by a medical and legal review of 129 shaken-baby cases spanning from 1986 to 2006. Ten of those cases, including Joseph’s, were then referred to an international panel of medical experts.

The panel found there was uncertainty regarding the cause of Joseph’s death and the timing of the injuries, court documents say.

Additionally, while there was evidence that Joseph had a head injury, the panel found it wasn’t clear whether that injury caused the boy’s death, they Crown’s submissions say. The experts determined that what had previously been considered brain bruises were in fact infarcts or strokes, the documents say, adding brain bruises are associated with abusive head trauma or shaken baby syndrome injuries.

The Appeal Court gave Gaskin an extension to challenge her conviction based on the fresh evidence, and her legal team retained three experts to review the file, they say. Their reports were turned over in 2024.

The three experts couldn’t eliminate the possibility of an inflicted injury, the Crown submissions say. Joseph died of cardiorespiratory arrest, which could have been caused by a head injury or by natural causes that led to sudden infant death, they say. Premature babies face increased risk of crib death, the documents say.

“As of today, the original expert evidence supporting the conviction of the appellant at trial has been wholly undermined and placed in grave doubt,” the Crown wrote.

“The investigation of infant death is complex, involving forensic examination and external and internal dissections – none of which were available at the time of the appellant’s conviction.”

The Appeal Court has entered acquittals in at least six similar cases, the Crown said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2026.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press