Jury acquits Orem man in tot's death

PROVO — After deliberating for five hours Friday, a jury of five women and three men found Christopher Scott Thunborg, 24, not guilty of killing his live-in girlfriend's 13-month-old son.

But Thunborg was found guilty of obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony, for not telling investigators about tripping when he was holding Austin Pettersson and falling on him until two days after the child died from internal injuries.

Thunborg is scheduled to return to Judge David N. Mortensen's courtroom on Jan. 14 at 10 a.m. to be sentenced.

"I am relieved the jury made the right decision on acquitting Chris of the allegations against him," said defense attorney Dusty Kawai after the jury returned the verdict Friday at 8:30 p.m. "We really feel that an innocent man has been exonerated."

Jurors began deliberations Friday afternoon following a seven-day trial that was marked by conflicting medical testimony, graphic autopsy photos and emotional recollections by witnesses.

The charges arose after Austin Pettersson died following a night when Thunborg had been baby-sitting.

An autopsy showed the child's intestines had been torn away from his stomach due to some type of forceful injury and there also were bruises on his body.

Thunborg was tending Austin while the boy's mother, Thunborg's girlfriend, Whitney Pettersson, was working a graveyard shift on March 12, 2008.

Defense witness Dr. Janice Ophoven, a pathologist from Minnesota, testified there was an old injury to the child's abdomen that must have occurred at least two to three weeks earlier.

Kawai said Ophoven suspected one of the primary causes of death was peritonitis — infection caused by an earlier injury. Medical information the defense team received indicated the boy had a previous injury, making him more vulnerable to any subsequent injury — such as being held in Thunborg's arms when Thunborg said he tripped and accidentally fell on Austin, Kawai said.

In addition, compressions from CPR could have caused the rupture and the spread of fluid in the abdomen, he said.

Prosecution witness Dr. Todd Grey, Utah's chief medical examiner, disagreed with Ophoven's opinion, testifying that when he conducted the autopsy, he did find an old injury that was healing. But Grey said he was "very confident" he also had found a fresh injury inside the child's body.

Grey also disputed the idea that CPR could have caused the child to die from the rupture and peritonitis, saying it was "possible, but preposterous" because even someone untrained in CPR would not use such force. Both Thunborg and officers responding to his call administered CPR on the child.