Appellant Richard Lamont Drake was convicted of malice murder in connection with the death of his five-week-old daughter.1 He now brings this appeal in which he contends that the giving of portions of the trial court’s jury instructions amounted to reversible error.
1. The associate medical examiner who performed the autopsy on the child testified that the cause of death was blunt force injury to the head, and that the child’s internal injuries subdural bleeding, optic nerves surrounded by hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging in the back of the neck, subarachnoid hemorrhaging with no evidence of an explanatory disease process were consistent with shaken baby syndrome.2 The expert opined that the child had died within a few hours of the infliction of the injuries since the injuries were severe and the body lacked an inflammatory response to those injuries. The child’s mother testified that, on the day the child died, appellant had called her at her job at approximately 6 p.m. and asked her to come home. When she arrived home, appellant told her the baby was not breathing and had appeared to have suffered a seizure. Another inhabitant of the home testified that he had heard the baby crying at 2:30 p.m. the day she died. According to the victim’s mother, as she and appellant walked with the child to a hospital, appellant told the witness to tell medical and police personnel that she had been with the baby all day and that the child had asphyxiated on formula. When the autopsy belied that explanation, the child’s mother, again at appellant’s suggestion, told police she had accidentally hit the child’s head on the wooden arm of a sofa. The child’s mother was then arrested. The investigating detective testified that the child’s mother told him two days after her arrest that appellant had told her he had hit the child on the head “a little bit too hard” when the infant had not stopped crying. The child’s mother testified that appellant’s threats concerning her family members had caused her to tell the two false stories to police. The evidence was sufficient to authorize appellant’s conviction. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979; Jones v. State, 263 Ga. 835 1 439 SE2d 645 1994.
