A shaken baby claim put a Bay Area man in prison. New science just got him out

San Francisco Chronicle​

17-05-2025

Reginald 'Regi' Tanubagijo spent 11 years in a San Quentin Rehabilitation Center prison cell wracked with grief, enduring a sentence for a crime he said he never committed.
In 2014, Tanubagijo was convicted of killing his infant foster son after Solano County prosecutors convinced a jury that the child's head injuries could only be explained by shaken baby syndrome, an injury that often occurs after an infant is violently shaken.
Tanubagijo, 68, insisted he never shook the 3-month-old. The baby fell and hit his head while he was being fed, he said. In court, prosecutors argued the particular pattern of injuries to the child's head could only have come from abusive trauma. Tanubagijo was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Tanubagijo's case reflected a long-held understanding in the medical and legal fields about shaken baby syndrome. For decades, the particular injuries that can occur when a small child is violently shaken — like diffuse bleeding around the brain and eyes and brain swelling — tended to be ascribed only to shaken baby syndrome when there were no other visible signs of trauma.
Tanubagijo's attorneys spent years arguing in court that the child's postmortem diagnosis was wrong. The injuries the child sustained, they said, could have come from the fall, as Tanubagijo had always maintained. Eventually, a slate of evolving medical literature offering alternative diagnoses prompted a judge this month to overturn Tanubagijo's conviction.
On Friday morning, Tanubagijo was released.
An increasing number of caregivers who were convicted following the death of an infant are being exonerated across the country. At least 37 people whose convictions relied on a prior understanding of shaken baby syndrome are currently listed on the National Registry of Exonerations. At least one judge has called the diagnosis, which has been used to convict scores of people since at least 2008, akin to 'junk science.'
Even when parents maintained that their infants had fallen or suddenly collapsed, doctors stuck to their shaken baby syndrome theories, Tanubagijo's lawyers said.
But over time, doctors have found cases where some accidental falls could cause the same constellation of symptoms. In 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics admitted there was no specific pattern of intracranial injury unique to 'abusive head trauma,' the term they now use in place of shaken baby syndrome.
Attorneys from the Northern California Innocence Project, who represented Tanubagijo, began working six years ago to identify and litigate 'likely wrongful' cases of shaken baby syndrome in California. Of the hundreds of convictions they found, a batch of them contained the hallmarks of 'a wrongful conviction based on new scientific evidence,' they said. Tanubagijo's was one of them.
The cases involved caregivers with no documented history of abuse, and where the only testimony that led to their convictions was by expert medical witnesses who declared the symptoms could only be explained as abuse.
'Even though this is a rare instance — that a short fall could cause these devastating injuries — a rare instance is very different than an impossible instance,' said Lauryn Barbosa Findley, the supervising attorney who represented Tanubagijo while he was incarcerated.
During Tanubagijo's 2014 trial, the defense's witnesses could not adequately explain how a short fall of just over 3 feet could have caused the baby's injuries. So for more than a decade at San Quentin, Tanubagijo sat in a cell, hoping and praying for something to vindicate him.
On the evening of Nov. 29, 2010, Tanubagijo said he was feeding his foster son, whom the family affectionately called 'Buddy.'
Tanubagijo and his wife, Tamera 'Tammy' Tanubagijo, had taken Buddy into their Suisun City home when the boy was 6 days old. Born six weeks early, he spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit and was drug-dependent: His mother had smoked cigarettes and used methamphetamine during her pregnancy. She relinquished custody of the boy shortly after birth.
Buddy wasn't the first child the Tanubagijos had taken into their home. Though they never had children of their own, they had served as foster parents for seven children, adopting one of them. They received awards from Solano County and the California State Assembly for their fostering efforts.
Their life was stable, fulfilled by the work they did for children in need. His wife stayed home to care for the kids. Tanubagijo, who immigrated from Indonesia in 1980, was employed at the Solano County Probation Office, where he worked as an accounting technician.
From the start, Buddy's medical conditions were a concern. The infant had blood in his stool and reflux issues. Eating was difficult, often painful for him. To help ease his discomfort, the Tanubagijos started putting him in a bouncer chair atop their dining table, keeping him propped up as he digested.
That evening, while Buddy was drinking formula, his face turned red and he seemed to be grimacing, Tanubagijo testified in trial. Coming closer to see if he was okay, Tanubagijo didn't realize that by stepping forward, the tablecloth slipped off the table, and the bouncy seat — with Buddy in it — was knocked onto the floor.
Buddy fell more than 3 feet, his face landing forward on the hard, tile floor, Tanubagijo said. When Tanubagijo picked him up, he realized Buddy was unresponsive. Remembering what he was taught in CPR class, he said he gently shook his son in an effort to revive him, at which point a white, milky material began dripping out of Buddy's nose.
Believing he was choking, Tanubagijo yelled for his wife, who was putting their 2-year-old daughter to bed, he said.
After the couple called 911, paramedics took Buddy to NorthBay Health Medical Center in Fairfield, where initial CT scans determined he had bleeding between his brain and skull. He was airlifted to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland, where additional scans showed his bleeding had worsened. He was placed on life support and died five days later.
The level of diffuse bleeding, a signature of shaking cases, would be the key points the prosecution used in its case against him.
Findley said the diffuse bleeding could have been the result of air pressure changes from his helicopter ride, or even from extended life support, which can increase intracranial pressure.
Prosecutors seized on the fact that Tanubagijo did not initially tell his wife, paramedics, or doctors that Buddy had fallen, only that he was choking. It was only after he was questioned by police, when Buddy was already on life support, that he explained what happened.
Fairfield Police officers who interviewed Tanubagijo told him that 'they knew' he had violently shaken Buddy, his lawyers said. Despondent, he attempted suicide at his home. In his suicide note, he wrote that he 'killed Buddy.' He was detained at the hospital and then arrested.
The prosecution used his suicide note as a sign of a guilty conscience, but during his trial, Tanubagijo testified that while he felt responsible for what happened to Buddy, he had not intentionally harmed his foster son.
His trial began four years after Buddy's death. More than 35 people wrote letters to the judge in support of him, including Pete Chavez, then the mayor of Suisun City.
Tanubagijo's attorneys brought in an expert neuropathologist who testified that the severity of Buddy's injuries could have come from an accidental fall, and that the infant had a preexisting condition — 'fluid collection with some blood in it over his brain.' The pathologist who performed Buddy's autopsy also testified his injuries were consistent with falling off a table from a bouncy seat.
Even after a juror was found tweeting about the case — writing that 'everybody's guilty until proven innocent' — he was not removed from his seat. After two days of deliberation, the jury returned guilty verdicts: second-degree murder and assault on a child causing great bodily injury or death. Tanubagijo's attorneys pushed for a mistrial, but they were denied.
In prison, Tanubagijo leaned on his Christian beliefs to cope with his grief. He took great lengths to hide the details of his case from other prisoners, fearing they may seek to harm someone convicted of killing a child.
'He will never not feel responsible for what happened to Buddy,' said Findley. 'I also think he didn't have an understanding of a way to challenge his conviction. He thought his best opportunity to get out was to be paroled.'
He kept in close contact with his family through video visits, primarily because of his wife's health issues and her desire to shield their daughter from the grim atmosphere of the prison.
In an interview with the Chronicle, Tammy Tanubagijo said she and Tanubagijo were ecstatic about their 'little growing family' before it was taken away.
'I didn't know how I was going to make it,' she said. 'I sat back and watched everything fall apart.'
Their daughter Makena, whom they fostered from birth and subsequently adopted, was 4 years old when her father was imprisoned. She often cried, 'I want Daddy.' All she had was his voice, but even calls could be difficult; the phones were often broken and scheduling was a challenge. For a long time, tablets weren't readily available, her mother said.
Recently, the 17-year-old told her mother she felt robbed of the experience of having a father. A father to sit with her as she did her homework, help her tie her shoes, or tuck her into bed.
'I just wish Regi could have shared in (her) growing up, and the proud moments that he missed with her,' said Tammy Tanubagijo. '(Now) we can finally, finally be a family again.'
Northern California Innocence Project attorneys began collecting data on shaken baby convictions in 2020. It took time to sort out the cases, but by 2021, they found Tanubagijo. They worked on the case under California Senate Bill 467, which provided a path for prisoners to challenge convictions that relied on evidence based on outdated science.
Tanubagijo's attorneys petitioned to get his case reviewed three times, and each time they were rejected. On their fourth try, in October 2023, the case started to move forward — the Superior Court ordered a new hearing.
At that hearing on May 7, Solano County Superior Court Judge William J. Pendergast reversed both of Tanubagijo's convictions, stating that new evidence presented by his attorneys would likely have changed the outcome of the case, and that the expert testimony used at his trial had been undermined by advancements in pediatric medicine.
The Solano County District Attorney's Office can still retry Tanubagijo. Spokespersons for the office declined to answer whether they planned to revisit Tanubagijo's case, saying they would have more information at his next hearing on June 6.
But just before 8 a.m. on Friday, outside the gates of San Quentin, Tanubagijo felt the bliss of being outside. Everyone except Makena, whom the family wanted to surprise back home, was there to greet him as he walked out of a prison van in a white sweater and beige hat, crying as he embraced his wife and sister.
Findley, who was there with other colleagues, brought him a box of Señorita bread, a sweet Filipino pastry that was his favorite. Then the group took the family to Miracle Mile Cafe in San Rafael, for his first meal out of prison: an omelet with fries and toast.
In an interview, he said it was surreal to be out in the fresh air, without shackles, after so many years. There were already things he wanted to attend to: repairs around the house and searching for a job so he could help his family. He hoped there could be an opportunity to help children again, in the way that had long defined his life.
'I consider this a miracle,' Tanubagijo said, speaking to his attorneys and family. 'Without you guys, I'm not here. That's the key.'
The family now lives in Clovis (Fresno County), where Tammy Tanubagijo and Makena moved in 2016. Tanubagijo will get to see his home for the first time. Makena, who is learning to drive, is excitedly awaiting the day when she can get behind the wheel with him in the passenger seat, teaching her. And depending on what happens with his case, he could see her graduate high school next year.
For his wife, the image she kept dreaming of was sitting with her husband in rocking chairs, on the porch. It wasn't the big things she longed for, but the small, passing moments that make up a normal day. The beauty of the regular things.
'Just sitting there, enjoying each other's company,' said Tammy Tanubagijo. 'Treasuring every moment, because in one second it can change.'