LYNN Fitial on Wednesday told the court that the Department of Public Safety investigator “mixed up” her statement to the police.
“There were a lot of things in the statement that are not true. She wrote stuff about what my mom said and wrote it like it was from me. What my sister-in-law said the investigator would say it was what Stacey [Laniyo] said. She mixed up a lot of things,” Fitial said.
Fitial was referring to the transcript of her interview with the investigator that Fitial signed and was presented to her in the jury trial of Stacey Laniyo to “refresh” her memory.
Assistant Attorney General Coleen St. Clair told Fitial that she had a lot of opportunity to review the notes with the detective.
But Fitial said she did not see the entire page 2 when she signed it. She also said that the document presented to court had notes that were not there when she first signed the document.
There was a total of five pages of her interview presented to court.
The exchange prompted Superior Court Judge Joseph N. Camacho to excuse the jurors.
Judge Camacho then asked Fitial, “You are saying that there are some statements on page 2 that when you previously signed it, it was not there?”
“Yes,” Fitial replied. “The half part of page 2, I did not see.”
Judge Camacho directed the prosecutor to contact the investigator.
“I need you to call the officer and confirm that she did not write those statements after Fitial signed on it — that’s what I need you to do, because I’m having her testify and read her statements that she may not have given,” the judge said.
Laniyo’s attorney, Mark Scoggins, also noted that page 2 of Fitial’s statement “is split in half —there’s a line there under her signature. There are two different handwritings.”
On Tuesday, after Fitial did not provide testimony similar to what she earlier told police, the prosecution sought to impeach her testimony.
Fitial was previously granted immunity so she could testify without fear of self-incrimination.
Laniyo’s jury trial began on Monday.
Laniyo, 37, and Fitial, 45 were arrested following the death of a 3-year-old boy on March 16, 2020.
The boy was an adopted son of Fitial and was in the care of Laniyo, her partner, when the alleged incident occurred.
Laniyo and Fitial were each charged with one count of child abuse.
According to the prosecution, Laniyo struck the boy with a tree branch, a broom, or her hand or by biting him, “resulting in injury clearly beyond the scope of reasonable corporal punishment and harming or threatening the child’s physical or mental health and well-being.”
As for Fitial, the prosecution said she failed to provide medical care for the boy resulting in his death.
The court earlier granted the request of the two defendants to have separate trials.
Besides Fitial, the prosecution also called crime scene investigator Lt. Mary Louise Tanaka and Dr. Rodney Klassen of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation to testify.
Tanaka took photographs of the boy at the morgue while Klassen called the boy’s time of death at 11:04 a.m. on March 16, 2020.
