Father is bound over in death of infant girl

When 7-month-old Trinity Kale ended up at LDS Hospital last July, her brain was bleeding and swelling, her skull fractured, and there were other injuries.

An expert witness stated Thursday the baby died from being severely shaken, and prosecutors say the child's father, Christopher Paul Kale, did it.

Kale, 35, was bound over for trial for first-degree felony murder following his preliminary hearing Thursday.

"In my opinion, Trinity died as a result of inflicted head injuries," assistant medical examiner Maureen Frikke testified.

The child appeared dehydrated, and drug tests on her hair revealed the presence of methamphetamine, according to Frikke.

Trinity's mother, Denise Ramirez, said she and Kale did not have a good relationship during the three years they were together and she felt she had to leave 17 times. She said she had spent some time at the Utah State Hospital and was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic but declined to take medications upon leaving the hospital. She also testified she has memory problems due in part to head injuries from a beating eight years ago by an ex-husband.

Ramirez wasn't staying in the Avenues home the couple shared with roommates on July 4-5 because the couple had had a quarrel. She said Trinity looked physically healthy and seemed fine on July 4. Ramirez said she spoke to Kale on July 5 and he described Trinity as sleeping peacefully on the balcony, but then he quickly called back to say that Trinity was dead.

Ramirez said Kale told her he had picked the child up and shook her to wake the infant.

Ramirez described her infant daughter as a happy baby who was "always smiling" and "didn't cry a lot."

In rambling and sometimes hard-to-follow testimony, Ramirez described Kale as being "impatient when overtired" with Trinity when the child cried, but "extremely attentive" when he had had enough sleep. She also said Kale was "under an extreme amount of pressure" and that it was a "fair description" of Kale to call him a loving father.

"A couple of times he yelled at the baby, 'Will you shut up?' " Ramirez said, later testifying that had happened "no more than 10 times."

That contradicted testimony from a neighbor, Ann Smyth, who said she often heard and saw Kale screaming at the baby while on a balcony that is visible from Smyth's front yard.