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Father is found not guilty of murder

After one jury is deadlocked, a second jury finds a 21-year-old dad guilty of aggravated child abuse.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published March 10, 2006

TAMPA - For more than two years, Anibal Angel Rios, 21, has been a man facing murder charges - a young father accused of snapping under pressure and shaking his infant son to death.

Did he do it? A jury in May couldn't decide.

But he was tried again in Hillsborough Circuit Court. After three hours of deliberation and four days of testimony, a second jury put the matter to rest Thursday.

Not guilty of first-degree murder. Guilty of aggravated child abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, two of which Rios has already served.

"No murder," cried his mother, Maria Comer, 38. "Thank you, Jesus."

Crying, public defender Theda James embraced a tearful Rios.

"An innocent man is not guilty," James later said.

On Christmas Eve 2003, Rios held his 3-month-old son, Victor Smith, in his arms while he hysterically cried into the phone that his baby was not breathing.

Victor died at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital. There was hemorrhaging in his brain, and ruptured blood vessels in his eyes.

The baby had been violently shaken, prosecutors maintained. They said Rios had grown frustrated as the baby cried incessantly while he was trying to take a shower, and he had snatched the boy from a pallet of blankets and pillows on the floor.

The baby was sickly and weak, the defense countered. He had been treated that month for respiratory problems and suffered from an undiagnosed chronic subdural hematoma, an accumulation of blood in the tissue around the brain.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Rita Peters called the trial a "battle of the experts," with doctors debating the very existence of shaken baby syndrome, and the necessary medical evidence needed to prove its presence.

The jury left to deliberate. Rios rose. He pressed his cuffed hands together in a sign of prayer and looked at his mother through tears. She looked back from the door of the courtroom, shaking. The pills for her nerves were not strong enough, she later said.

Outside, she broke down.

"He took care of that baby with all his love," Comer said. "He stayed home 24 hours a day with him. He would never intentionally hurt his child."

Rios didn't even know the baby was his when Victor was born. The baby's mother, Jacqueline Santiago, had told him Victor belonged to another woman, and that she had given birth as a surrogate mother. Two weeks later, she admitted the baby was theirs, and Rios insisted on raising Victor as a family.

Santiago and Rios' mother picked up Victor from the home of the woman who had been caring for him, and took Victor back to Comer's home.

Rios rode his bike to his mother's house to see his son for the first time. He scooped him up and didn't let him go, Comer said. Victor was a spitting image of his father, down to the wily eyebrows that gave Rios the family nickname Diablito, little devil.

"Look mami, he looks like me," Rios told Comer. "He's mine, mami."

Rios had a criminal record - burglaries, shoplifting, vehicle theft. The trouble ceased when he became a father, said his aunt Justina Alvarez, 30. He stopped hanging out with his friends. Victor became his life - the first thing in his life he really cared about, Alvarez said.

Rios will grieve the loss of his son for his entire life, Comer said. But the jury decided it won't all be spent behind bars.

His sentencing is set for April 12.

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 10, 2006, 02:20:51]