Parents receive $2.2 million after doctor posted horrific video of their child's autopsy online
Georgia parents who sued a doctor after he posted autopsy photos of their decapitated baby on social media have been awarded a whopping $2.2 million in damages.
Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr. alleged their baby boy, Treveon Isaiah Taylor Jr., was decapitated during childbirth at Southern Regional Medical Center on July 9, 2023.
The couple said they had no idea of their son's condition until they were notified by the funeral home and hired pathologist Dr. Jackson Gates to conduct an autopsy on the newborn.
However, they filed a lawsuit against the pathologist after they paid him $2,500 for the autopsy and discovered he posted identifying videos and photos on Instagram, where he often shares his work for public health purposes.
'This video showed in graphic and grisly detail a postmortem examination of the decapitated, severed head of Baby Isaiah,' court documents said.
The lawsuit stated that after the clip was removed, Gates posted two more videos of the baby's autopsy exactly a week later - ones that graphically depicted the baby's head, body, brain, and even organs.
A judge ruled that Gates was liable for sharing the images on social media in March 2024.
On Wednesday, a jury awarded Ross and Taylor $2.25 million in damages, as reported by Atlanta News First.
'While we are pleased that a jury punished Dr. Jackson Gates for his reprehensible behavior, nothing can ease the pain that the parents, Jessica Ross and Treveon Isaiah Taylor Sr., have experienced in losing their baby boy in such a horrific way,' the couple's attorneys said.
'After the decapitation of their baby, Gates poured salt into the couple's already deep wounds when he betrayed them.
'This young couple trusted him with the remains of their precious baby. Gates, in turn, repaid this trust by posting horrific images of their child for the world to see.'
Gates's attorney, Ira Livnat, told WSBTV that his client regularly posted autopsy results on social media and had no intention of hurting Ross and Taylor.
'I believe that Dr. Gates believed he was helping. He believed he was helping the plaintiffs uncover what the hospital actually had done,' Livnat said
'He's absolutely heartbroken for what happened to this family. And what he said at trial was, is that if he had known that it would have harmed them, he would have never done it.'
The parents' nightmare began on July 9, 2023, when Ross arrived at the hospital to give birth.
They claim Dr. Tracey St. Julian applied 'ridiculously excessive force' on the baby's head and neck to try to deliver it while Ross was still awake.
Ross began experiencing complications when her baby boy's shoulders got stuck during a vaginal delivery which started at 8.40pm, according to the suit.
Dr. St. Julian is accused of delaying a C-section procedure and failing to seek help quickly.
Instead, she applied 'ridiculously excessive force' on the baby's head and neck to try to deliver it while Ross was still awake, claims attorney and physician Roderick Edmond.
The baby's body and legs were delivered by C-section three-and-a-half hours later at 12.11am, and his head was delivered vaginally.
When Ross and Taylor demanded to see and hold their child, they claim the baby was tightly wrapped in a blanket with his head 'propped on top of his body' to make it appear like it was still attached. They ultimately found out about the decapitation from the funeral home, they claim.
The grieving couple has filed a lawsuit against Ross and the hospital, accusing them trying to cover up what happened by discouraging them from getting an autopsy and encouraging them to have their son cremated.
In February 2024, the Clayton County Medical Examiner's Office baby Isaiah's death was ruled a homicide.
The baby suffered 'fracture dislocation with complete transection (to the) upper cervical spine and spinal cord,' according to an autopsy report.
His death was caused by shoulder dystocia, arrest of labor and fetal entrapment in the birth canal. Pregnancy-induced diabetes and premature rupture of membranes also contributed, per the report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
The missing link in the grooming gangs report: cousin marriage
When the US Department of Defence set up an interrogation unit at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, it conducted a detailed study on the suspected terrorists it held. Agents wanted to understand the links between them, the way they had worked together, the better to infiltrate their wider networks. They found nothing. Diddly squat. They conducted audits, led themselves on a merry dance, but achieved zilch. • 'Wrongly prosecuted' grooming gang victims denied compensation Then they hired someone who understood the culture of the people they'd apprehended; someone steeped in Arabic mores. She instantly spotted a pattern in the names of the suspects. A startlingly high proportion were from two clans: the Qahtani and the Utaybi. When she mentioned this to her DoD colleagues, their first question was: what the hell is a clan? Only after she explained the significance of these social institutions, the subtle pattern of names that indicate clan affiliations and the codes of honour and secrecy that make them powerful vehicles for group action did they see the point. The agents were then able to infiltrate the networks and prevent future atrocities. Why am I telling you this? Well, because I read Baroness Casey of Blackstock's report on the rape gangs scandal with rising levels of frustration — indeed much the same emotion with which I read her 2016 report on social integration. I don't doubt Casey's work rate or integrity. But I think that, somewhat like the DoD at Guantanamo, she couldn't see what was before her eyes because she lacked the appropriate analytical lens. • 'Whitehall tried to block Rotherham grooming scandal exposé' You see, to understand many of the most urgent failures of integration, you need to understand the clan. These groups are held together not just by ideology or religion; they are cemented by cousin marriage, a common practice in Arabic cultures and, in the UK, many Pakistani immigrant communities, particularly those hailing from Kashmir. By marrying within small, tightknit groups, they ensure everything is kept within the baradari, or brotherhood — property, secrets, loyalty — binding clan members closer together while sequestering them from wider society. In her 2016 report Casey rightly talked about the failure to speak English, honour beatings and the like, but she missed the point that many of these problems are a function of marriage practices that isolate communities. The academic Patrick Nash of the Pharos Foundation has written of baradari life 'concentrated in small geographical areas spread across a few streets or nearby neighbourhoods where there is little need or opportunity to have much to do with wider society or practise the English language'. To write a report on failures of integration without seeing the link with cousin marriage is, I suggest, like writing on the power grid without noting the significance of electricity. • How the grooming gang report detailed abusers' ethnicity Casey's report on the rape gang scandal was flawed for the same reason. It was a strange experience to read her words as she edged ever closer to grasping the point without quite getting there. She noted that the problem is disproportionately concentrated among British Pakistanis. She even noted that 'two thirds of suspects offended within groups' that were 'based on pre-existing relationships — mainly brothers and cousins'. But then, stunningly, she suggested that these links were 'unsophisticated' and 'informal'. Anyone who studies these things — one thinks of Michael Muthukrishna at LSE — could have told her that this is the unmistakable pattern of clan-based crime: groups whose links are anything but informal and unsophisticated. Charlie Peters, who has investigated this problem for GB News, told me: 'The deeper you probe, the more you see the presence of clans. We know that such communities are more likely to see others as outsiders, of less moral value and, when it comes to young white girls, fair game. The perpetrators also knew that they could commit crimes without getting dobbed in since loyalty is owed to the clan but not victims. In some cases, abusers were aided by relatives in authority.' Nash put it this way: 'Cousin marriage sustains close-kin networks which incentivise clan members both to dehumanise out-group victims and to suppress knowledge of criminal activity to preserve family honour.' • Grooming gangs 'still at large, and the victims aren't believed' A couple of examples. Last year, Shaha Amran Miah, 48, Shaha Alman Miah, 47, and Shaha Joman Miah, 38, were convicted at Preston crown court of horrific abuse perpetrated in Barrow-in-Furness and Leeds. Yes, these were Pakistani men, but they were also brothers within an overarching baradari. In Rotherham in 2016, Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain groomed and raped children for nearly 20 years while Qurban Ali was found guilty of conspiracy to rape. Three of these men are brothers and Ali is their uncle. I have long advocated a ban on cousin marriage but should perhaps say that I've never regarded it as a panacea. Improving integration requires so much more: ending mass uncontrolled immigration, amending legal frameworks to stop the boats, deporting foreign criminals, not to mention other policies supported by large majorities but serially ducked by politicians. A ban on consanguinity would, though, be of huge value. American states with bans tend to be more prosperous and faster-growing. Nations with bans are richer and more integrated, with less corruption and lower rates of crime. A ban would also reduce the prevalence of the congenital diseases causing untold suffering in Kashmiri immigrant communities from Bradford to Luton. The good news is that Kemi Badenoch has adopted this as Tory policy after campaigning by her colleague Richard Holden, and a poll for YouGov last month showed that 77 per cent of the British people are in favour of a ban (only 9 per cent oppose it). But here's what astounds me: Labour remains against prohibition, despite (I am told) having read the evidence. Why? How? Permit me to suggest that I glimpse through the façade of prevarication a party still terrified of criticising any cultural practice out of fear of appearing racist. Isn't that why it was mute for so long on female genital mutilation and honour beatings and still can't bring itself to describe the burqa as a pernicious symbol of institutional misogyny? In other words, the reason the grooming scandal was not confronted for so long by both main parties (not to mention the police and social services) — namely, the fear of seeming bigoted for investigating ethnic minorities, even while they were gang-raping young girls — is still alive and well in the British government. As the son of a Pakistani immigrant who integrated into this nation (not least by marrying my mum) and came to love it, I find this sickening. One can perhaps forgive Casey for missing the significance of cousin marriage, given that it is a custom with which she is unfamiliar (although, frankly, she should have done her homework), but there can be no excuse for politicians who put cultural sensitivities before basic decency. So I say to Starmer, Hermer, Cooper et al: examine your consciences. Did you really go into politics to be apologists for the worst kind of moral relativism, to acquiesce in the nihilistic pretence that all cultural practices are of equal value, when they emphatically are not? If not, find your backbone, confront the Muslim bloc vote and ban cousin marriage. The alternative is betrayal of the most heinous kind. For here's a thought to focus minds: girls today, even as you read these words, are being abused by ethnic clans operating in this country. Fail to act now, and this is on you.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Minnesota shooting suspect was a 'prepper' who made a 'bailout plan'
The wife of the suspect charged with killing a Minnesota politician and attempting to assassinate another confessed the couple are 'doomsday preppers' and her husband had given her a 'bailout plan.' Vance Boelter, 57, is accused of fatally shooting former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home in the early morning hours of June 14 in the northern Minneapolis suburbs. He also allegedly shot and wounded another Democrat, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, who lived a few miles away. While Boelter was on the run, his wife was pulled over with a trove of suspicious items in her car. Jenny Boelter, 51, was stopped by authorities at a convenience store while driving a car with the couple's children inside and found with a weapon, ammunition, cash and passports. According to an FBI affidavit obtained by WCCO, Boelter's wife told the investigator they were 'preppers,' meaning they 'prepare for major or catastrophic incidents.' She said her husband gave her a 'bailout plan,' with instructions to go to her mother's home in southwestern Wisconsin, which she initiated after receiving a text from her husband that 'they needed to get out of the house and people with guns may be showing up to the house.' The affidavit also stated that Boelter was driven to a bank in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, by an unnamed person and withdrew all $2,200 he had in a bank account in his name. The driver, listed in court documents as 'Witness 1,' is the same person investigators said sold Boelter an electric bike and a Buick sedan, which were found during the 43-hour manhunt last weekend. Boelter surrendered Sunday night after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history. He has been charged with six federal crimes, including murder, stalking and firearms offense, as two murder and two attempted murder charges at the state level. Boelter has not entered any pleas and could face the death penalty if convicted on the federal charges. Meanwhile, Boelter's wife has remained in hiding - as the accused assassin's defiant family were tight-lipped concerning her whereabouts, telling a reporter to 'piss off.' Shaken mom-of-five, Jenny rang pals only to say she was in a 'safe' location but wouldn't reveal where she was. She fled the family's bucolic farmhouse home in Green Isle, Minnesota, the morning of June 14 after Boelter hinted that he had done something monstrous in a 6.18am text. 'Dad went to war last night,' wrote of her 57-year-old husband. 'There's gonna be some people coming to the house armed and trigger happy and I don't want you guys around.' As news broke that Boelter had allegedly gunned down two lawmakers and their spouses in Minneapolis, Jenny was pulled over driving through Onamia, 90 miles north. She had their youngest children in the car along with their passports, $10,000 in cash and two handguns, according to federal court filings. Jenny, the president of the couple's private security firm, consented to a voluntary search of her electronic devices but wasn't arrested during the 10am traffic stop. There's nothing in her husband's charging documents to suggest she had advance knowledge of his alleged plot to slaughter dozens of Democrat lawmakers and pro-abortion activists. Jenny has not commented publicly since Boelter was captured Sunday evening and charged with multiple counts of murder and stalking. Her brother Jason Doskocil, 54, had a blunt message for when we asked about her whereabouts.
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Real Housewives star Dolores Catania reveals frightening health crisis that led her to have surgery
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dolores Catania revealed she was forced to have heart surgery after suffering from atrial fibrillation (AFib). Her condition is a form of arrhythmia, meaning her heartbeat had become irregular, causing her to have chest pains that began six months ago. Last month she underwent a cardiac ablation, a procedure that destroys the small bit of heart tissue that was causing the problem. Dolores, 54, went public with the news this weekend, posting an Instagram video that began with her boyfriend Paulie Connell driving her to the hospital. 'We are going to get my procedure done. It's a cardiac ablation for my AFib. I know, I'm too young to have this,' she quipped to the camera. As they emerged from the car and walked into the building, he asked if she had a 'last word' to say, to which she beamed at him and said: 'Love you.' She also posted photos and video of herself in her bed and gown, including one apparently post-op snap of herself grinning beside her electrophysiologist, whom she jokingly referred to as her 'other electrician.' 'About six months ago, I was driving when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest that radiated down my arm,' she explained in her caption. 'As women, we tend to ignore aches and pains, brushing them off as part of everyday life- but this felt different,' remembered Dolores. 'After that, I started experiencing frequent flutters in my chest, sometimes waking me up at night. Eventually, I got scared enough to call my cardiologist,' she wrote. 'He gave me a heart monitor to wear, and within hours, he called to tell me I had AFib (atrial fibrillation). He referred me to an electrophysiologist, who confirmed the diagnosis,' added the New Jersey-born reality star. 'He told me, 'You're not the same girl I met two years ago when you came here with Paul.' Some of you may remember that my boyfriend, Paul Connell, was diagnosed with WPW (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome) and also needed an ablation.' Dolores offered a word to the wise to her fans: 'I'm sharing this because I want you to listen to your body. That racing or fluttering in your chest you feel doing simple tasks during the day- that's your body trying to tell you something. DON'T IGNORE THIS. AFib increases your risk of stroke or heart attack.' She crowed: 'I'm not 6 weeks out and back to myself! I'll be off all medication soon, and I haven't had any episodes since the procedure.' Dolores urged readers not to 'wait' as their 'heart health is not something to take lightly,' adding that she 'was truly in the best of hands' with her doctors and encouraging her public: 'Take care of yourself you deserve it!!' She began dating Paulie four years ago after they met in line at an Apple Store, and the pair have been living together for the bulk of that time. Her surname comes from her ex-husband Frank Catania, whom she was married to from 1994 to 1998, during which time they welcomed two children. Dolores has publicly claimed the marriage crumbled after she discovered that Frank cheated on her during her pregnancy with their son Frankie, 27.
