Oregon couple convicted in son's faith-healing death [View All]

It was a home video not much different than those countless parents take of their baby's first minutes. In it, tiny David Hickman looked much like any other newborn: waving his arms, crying vigorously.

Later that night, though, the prematurely born infant started having trouble breathing. His movements slowed. His father, Dale Hickman, anointed him with olive oil, held him in his arms and watched him die. No one called a doctor--Hickman and his wife, Shannon, are members of Oregon's Followers of Christ, a faith-healing church that advocates leaving human fate in the hands of God.

The Hickmans face sentencing on Oct. 31 after a jury in Clackamas County, Ore., convicted them Thursday of second-degree manslaughter in the 2009 death of their son.

The case is the fourth in recent years involving members of the Oregon City-based church, which led Oregon lawmakers in June to end the last remnants of provisions in state law that allow spiritual healing as a defense in homicide cases. Two other children linked to the Followers of Christ have died since 2008, and a third suffered serious medical repercussions.

"The fact here is that too many children have died, unnecessarily. Needlessly. They have died. And there is a graveyard nearly full of their bodies. And it has to stop. It just has to stop," Clackamas County Circuit Judge Steven Maurer said when imposing sentence last year against parents in one of those cases, Jeffrey and Marci Beagley, whose 16-year-old son died without medical treatment for a urinary tract blockage.

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/oregon-couple-convicted-in-sons-faith-healing-death.html