Brain Damage

Richard Feaster (left) confers with his attorneys, Jaime Kaigh (right) and Fred Last during the death penalty phase of his murder trial. Defense witnesses testified that the Woodbury Heights man, 24, suffered from brain damage and impulsively killed a Deptford gas station attendant in 1993. The jury will start deliberating today.

A 22-year-old Mount Airy woman has been charged with murder in the death of her 8-month-old son. She is accused of shaking him so violently that he suffered fatal brain damage. Jill Tate Gray of Mount Pleasant Avenue near Thouron Street surrendered to police at 6:45 p.m. yesterday in connection with the Nov. 21 death of her son, Keith Gray, a police spokesman said. An autopsy ruled that the child had died as the result of "shaken-baby syndrome," said Terry Williamson, spokesman for District Attorney Ron Castille.

A South Jersey man accused of stopping a nursery school van and shooting the driver to death has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial because of the effects of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. John Deichert, 55, of Gibbsboro, had been accused of stopping the van driven by Kitty Brewin, 43, in October, shooting Brewin dead and then turning the gun on himself. There were no children on the van at the time. Police say Deichert knew the victim and may have had a crush on her. He was hospitalized 50 days for partial paralysis of the legs and arms, and suffered brain damage from the self-inflicted wound.

A South Jersey man accused of stopping a nursery school van and shooting the driver to death has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial because of the effects of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. John Deichert, 55, of Gibbsboro, had been accused of stopping the van driven by Kitty Brewin, 43, in October, shooting Brewin dead and then turning the gun on himself. There were no children on the van at the time. Police say Deichert knew the victim and may have had a crush on her. He was hospitalized 50 days for partial paralysis of the legs and arms, and also suffered brain damage from the self-inflicted wound.

Terry F. Heidnik says he is not surprised that his older brother, Gary, is accused of shackling, torturing and killing black women. "He's doing what my father preached: 'What good's a nigger? If you're gonna abuse someone, abuse a nigger. Their life's minuscule. Put them on a boat and pull the plug.' That's his attitude. Three points, Dad. You ought to be proud. He's a chip off the old block," Terry Heidnik said. He spoke to the Daily News yesterday at a diner near his home in this Lycoming County community.

For a problem that has no doubt been around as long as humans have been falling on hard objects and bashing one another's skulls with clubs, brain injuries are still surprisingly mysterious. Scientists, including a cadre at the University of Pennsylvania, are lifting the veil, though, and what they're seeing is already "dramatically" changing American sports, said Douglas Smith, who heads Penn's Center for Brain Injury and Repair. Everyone from parents to pro athletes to military leaders is suddenly paying more attention to "mild" brain injuries, or concussions, and their long-term consequences.

The jury said Donald Gardner, 35, was not guilty of shaking his girlfriend's 4-month-old daughter to death last year, but was guilty of endangering the child's welfare. "I don't understand it," Assistant District Attorney Randolph Williams said after yesterday's verdict. He had sought a murder conviction. Gardner, of 16th Street near Federal, was committed to prison under $100,000 bail to await sentencing by Common Pleas Judge Lynne M. Abraham. Defense attorney Peter Rogers contended there was a "reasonable doubt" that Gardner was responsible for the death of Savannah Taylor in July 1987.

William Lawlis Pace, 103, who held the Guinness World Record for living the longest with a bullet in his head, died in his sleep Monday at a Turlock, Calif., nursing home. His death came 94 years and six months after his older brother accidentally shot him with their father's .22-caliber rifle in 1917. Mr. Pace learned in 2006 that he had been crowned the world record-holder in the category of unwanted cranial ammunition. His son told a newspaper during a birthday party for his father last year that doctors in Mr. Pace's native Texas left the bullet in place because they worried that surgery might cause brain damage.

A man yesterday said in court yesterday that he fondled himself in plain view of adolescent girls at an area elementary school and swim club, actions that his attorney attributed to too many bean balls. Before Charles P. Catalano, 27, of Lumberton, began staking out areas frequented by pubescent girls, he sustained several concussions by being struck in the head by baseballs while batting in community leagues, said defense attorney John Call Jr. Because of the location and number of the impacts, Call said a neurologist determined that Catalano had sustained brain damage.

A 31-year-old Bucks County man who had been left a quadriplegic and unable to speak after falling 20 feet while walking on a rock path on Conrail property in Kensington has won a $30 million judgment against Conrail. Thomas Hird was walking along a well-known path used by local residents in September 1994 when he stumbled, lost his footing, and fell on his head. He suffered brain damage. He cannot use his legs or arms. Conrail's lawyer, Thomas F. Reilly, contended that Hird was a trespasser.