No charges in death of infant 54 years ago

A woman who confessed to killing her son 54 years ago won't be prosecuted, at least for now.

Chief Assistant Calhoun County Prosecutor Daniel Buscher said Friday he has denied a requested murder warrant for Janice Summerfield, 78, of Battle Creek, in the death May 29, 1961, of 8-month-old William Summerfield III in Tekonsha.

Buscher said after he met again Thursday with Calhoun County Sheriff Department Detective Steve Hinkley and talked with Medical Examiner Joyce deJong, he decided he could not file charges.

"Based on inconclusive medical results, I am not comfortable at this time proceeding," Buscher said Friday. "We have many cold cases that are 25 or 30 years old, but in this case the scientific evidence made it very difficult. We wanted to do the right thing because we only have one chance at prosecution."

Paula Gastian, 55, of Battle Creek went to Hinkley last year and said Summerfield confessed in September to smothering her infant son, Gastian's brother.

Hinkley opened an investigation and said Summerfield confessed to him. The woman later told the Enquirer in a brief telephone interview that, "I killed that baby. My mind wasn't right. I killed that baby. I didn't know what I was doing."

But a confession is by itself not enough under the law to issue charges, prosecutors said. The body of the child was exhumed in October and studied for weeks. But deJong ultimately could not find evidence that the death was a homicide.

"The body was so degraded we had a rough time having any conclusion as to what caused the death," Buscher said. "Dr. deJong was not comfortable based on the medical evidence that is available to call it a homicide. Unless that is cleared up now or there is further testing later on, I would technically deny it at this point. But they are free to submit it with any new evidence. But at this time I am going to deny it."

"It's crappy news," said Phil Summerfield who lives in Huntsville, Ala., and was 41/ 2 when he woke that May morning and found the dead body of his brother in his bed. He said his mother blamed him for the death and he lived with guilt until last year.

"I was shy of 5 years old. I woke, and he was dead," Phil Summerfield recalled last year. "I picked him up and took him downstairs. She told me it was my fault."

"I have to admit that I expected it," Phil Summerfield, 58, said Friday. "But I hoped that something else would happen. It was some help that I haven't been involved, and all this did was rehash things without there being an outcome. It's just what I expected as an outcome."

Another sibling, Mike Summerfield, 47, of Marshall, said he was not surprised at the outcome of the investigation after a meeting he and his sister and brother had with investigators and deJong several weeks ago.

"When I walked out of the meeting a few months ago, this was the expectation," he said. "I am disappointed, but I set low expectations. Everyone was frank about what we were going to find or what we were not going to find."

Mike Summerfield said he has tried to become emotionally removed because of his low expectations.

"I don't feel like anything was really accomplished," he said. "We are done now. With any wound, once it is closed it is going to get better. It's the way it works."

In making his decision, Buscher said he also considered evidence that Janice Summerfield was suffering from a mental condition then and it continues now.

"We are also looking at issues of her competency even way back then," Buscher said. "She was seeking treatment then, but because those physicians have passed away it is hard to determine what she was treated for and if she was on medication at the time and if that would affect our decision. And we have to look back at the law then on competency and criminal responsibility."

For years Gastian, who could not be reached Friday, and her two brothers have wondered about the death of their infant brother and later their twin sisters, who died as small children while the family was living in Battle Creek. A fourth child, a baby boy, died on Aug. 20, 1961, at Oaklawn Hospital in Marshall, five days after birth.

Gastian said she was raised in an abusive home with a mother who used drugs and neglected her children. Their father, William Summerfield, 86, was a truck driver, often absent from the home. He was sentenced to prison in September after he entered a plea to a sexual assault of a friend's child.

"I was investigating it myself," Gastian said last year about the deaths. "I had twin sisters and I always suspected neglect."

Beth Summerfield was 3 months and 15 days old when she died May 1, 1969. Her sister, Brenda, was 11 months and 14 days old when she died Jan. 1, 1970.

Both girls died while the family was living in Battle Creek, and death certificates for them list bilateral pneumonitis (lung disease) as the cause of death.

Gastian said she went to her mother's nursing home room in September, the day after her father was sentenced to prison, to confront her about the deaths of her twin sisters. She had heard her mother had been making statements to nursing home staff about her role in a killing.

Gastian said when confronted that day, her mother confessed to killing her brother but denied she killed the twin girls.

Buscher said investigators considered exhuming the bodies of the two girls.

"We discussed it, but I am uncomfortable because I don't want to disturb the remains and I don't believe there will be anything there that will cause us to charge or not charge. Our theory is the same, that there was some type of suffocation and there would not be any traumatic injuries to the bodies or brains or any blunt force trauma that would give us a clear indication about cause of death. I just don't think exhuming the bodies of the two girls would shed any more light on the case."

But Buscher said the case remains open and in homicides the statute of limitations does not end.

"We have not closed the case," he said. "We will always consider prosecution."

Call Trace Christenson at 966-0685. Follow him on Twitter: @TSChristenson.