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Dozens observed avoidable death of fifteen-month-old girl; none called a doctor
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Raylene and Ava Worthington (AP Photo/Randy L Rasmussen, Pool)
The exact number of church members who gathered for 15-month-old Ava Worthington’s death is not known, but witnesses at the time said at least 100 cars and trucks occupied every available parking space on the street. Had even one of the drivers or passengers called an ambulance, Ava would almost certainly be alive today.
On March 2, 2008, the assembled vehicles tipped off the Worthington’s neighbors on Crestview Drive in Oregon City, Oregon that something was going on. They had no way of knowing that members of the Followers of Christ Church were gathering to pray for and anoint a baby, and then let her die from what doctors describe as an easily treatable infection.
When deputy medical examiner Jeffrey Mayer arrived that evening, he described the house as “standing room only” and “packed,” with people lining the hallway to the master bedroom, where the baby’s body lay on her parents’ bed. Church members filed out of the bedroom as he approached to declare the baby dead as required by Oregon law.
This week, Ava’s parents Carl and Raylene Worthington went on trial for the second-degree manslaughter death of their daughter. Details of the death are becoming known to the public as the trial unfolds.
In court Wednesday, prosecutors played a video of a police interview with Carl the night his daughter died. He said Ava first became ill on Saturday, March 1st. The family asked to the church for prayer, but that night, the baby’s breathing became labored. She apparently became no better Sunday, but the parents’ response was simply to lay hands on her and pray.
A cyst on Ava’s neck grew until it extended from her ear to her collarbone. The medical examiners have said they believe the growth was a response to the raging bacterial infection, and that it probably interfered with her breathing, which the Worthington’s observed Saturday night.
Asked why he did not call a doctor, Carl Withington responded, "I don't believe in them."
At 7:00 p.m. Sunday night, Ava died.
Talking with detectives later that evening, Carl Worthington had the presence of mind to observe their inexperience with the Followers of Christ. “I suppose you've never seen anything like this," he commented.
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