At one of my Medical Examiner seminars, I viewed a video tape that was
taken at a hospital.  This was an infant that was always having "spells".
 An alert hospital staff put the child into a room here there was a hidden
video camera.  The tape shows the dad turning off the apnea monitor and
then putting a pillow over the babies head and leaning over it.  You can
see the little legs kicking and moving all about and then when the child
just starts to not move the father removes the pillow, turns the alarm back
on and then calls the nurse and says "she just had another spell."

Allegedly the parents were doing this because they received "free" room and
board while the child was in the hospital.  When the case was taken to
court by the local prosecuting attorney, the judge dismissed the attempted
murder charges because "the father stopped the smothering before the child
was dead, he did not intend to murder the child only to make it appear
ill."  They did at least find the parents guilty of child endangerment and
removed their custody rights.

Jon Ahrendsen MD FAAFP LLLI Medical Associate
  515-532-2836         Clarion, Iowa USA