"The case of a north suburban
woman currently serving a 31-year sentence for the murder of a
16-month-old child at the daycare where she once worked, has taken an
unexpected turn. A doctor who previously told jurors
that Melissa Calusinski was responsible for what he called the child’s
violent death, may have never even examined the body. A deputy coroner told the court that
Dr. Maneul Montez — who testified at trial that he examined the boy and
manipulated the skull fracture — wasn’t telling the truth.........“Montez made it all up,” defense
attorney Kathleen Zellner said. “He said ‘I don’t need to look at an
x-ray to see if there’s a skull fracture ‘cause I felt it.’ Well, he
didn’t feel it.” A local pediatric nueroradiologist
says Montez couldn’t have felt the skull, because the x-rays show there
was no skull fracture. When asked if it could be a wrongful
conviction since the x-rays show there was no skull fracture, Dr. Robert
Allen Zimmerman, a pediatric radiologist, said Calusinski’s confession
couldn’t be true, because her description of what happened simply
doesn’t match the injuries. Asked whether Calusinski deserves a new trial, Zimmerman says, “I’m no lawyer I guess the answer is yes.”.........Meanwhile, the hearing to determine whether Calusinski gets a new trial continues Friday."