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Associated PressA man reveals long-held suspicions, leading authorities to charge a Florida woman in the 1972 death of a 5-year-old son.
TOWSON, Md. - Thirty-two years after her 5-year-old son's death, a Florida woman was charged with his murder - an accusation raised in an e-mail another son sent authorities.
On Friday, a Baltimore County judge ordered Diane B. Coffman, 57, a dentist's receptionist from DeLand, held on $25,000 bail.
Her attorney, Domenic Iamele, said Coffman planned to plead innocent and return to her home in DeLand, where she moved in 1999, after posting bail.
"She's aghast," Iamele said. "She was living a normal life, and all of a sudden the police come and charge her for the murder of her child. ... This comes completely out of left field."
Official records said the cause of 5-year-old Edward Coffman's death in August 1972 was undetermined. But on July 9, Baltimore County police received an e-mail from Richard A. Coffman, who was 3 at the time, saying he thinks his mother was responsible for his older brother's death.
Police spokesman Bill Toohey declined to release the text of the e-mail, but he said it talked about the mother's character and things that happened after Edward's death.
"It wasn't so much what he remembered about age 3 but some other things about his past that he shared with us," Toohey said.
Police declined to say where Richard Coffman, now 35, lives. Iamele described him as a "disgruntled child" and said he has been angry at his mother since he was 10.
After receiving the e-mail, officials re-examined records of the original investigation. The mother told police her son fell in a tub, that she put ice packs on his face and put him to bed, and that she found him dead more than 12 hours after he fell.
The 1972 autopsy showed 17 injuries, some of them old. Police said the injuries were inconsistent with the mother's story. Last month, the medical examiner changed the manner of death from undetermined to homicide.
Coffman was arrested Tuesday at her job in Orange City.
No one at Dianne and Darryl Coffman's home in DeLand, about 20 miles southwest of Daytona Beach, responded to attempts to contact them. A Baltimore Orioles towel blocked a window at their front door.
Christine Shouse, a neighbor, said the Coffmans often looked after their young grandson.
"I hope everything works out for her," she said, "because they take such good care of that grandbaby."