Joshua James Dulle of Harrison, charged with capital murder in the death of a six-month-old infant in February 2016, has been sentenced to 16 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. A Boone County Circuit Court jury Wednesday found him not guilty of capital murder but found him guilty of the lesser included offense of second degree murder.
At one point, Dulle was in Baxter County Circuit Court for the purpose of hearing motions filed in the case. The hearing was held in Mountain Home due to the unavailability of a courtroom in Boone County.
During the hearing, 14th District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge announced to the court the state would be waiving the death penalty in Dulle’s case because there were not a sufficient number of aggravating circumstances to sustain a death penalty finding.
According to court records, the 31-year-old Dulle was accused of causing the death of an infant, Miles Dunaway, by what is commonly known as “shaken baby syndrome.” In addition, the infant had marks on his neck consistent with those caused by a ligature.
Dulle was arrested in June 2016 following a four-month investigation into the infant’s death.
When questioned, Dulle told investigators he had been babysitting the infant and two other small children in an apartment complex in Harrison.
He said the child’s mother brought the infant to Dulle’s apartment for his girlfriend to babysit him. The girlfriend had to leave, and Dulle was left to sit with the children.
Dulle told investigators he gave the boy a bath, wrapped him in a blanket and put the child on the floor for a nap with a bottle propped up on a blanket. He said he left the room for about five minutes, and when he returned, he found the baby unresponsive. Dulle said he could not find his cellphone to call for help and took the child to a neighbor’s apartment and asked them to call 911.
He said while he was looking for his cellphone, he tripped and had fallen with the baby in his arms.
Dulle said he panicked and shook the baby twice in an attempt to revive him. He mimicked his actions for investigators, and they said the shaking was aggressive.
According to the State Medical Examiner’s Office, the baby died of traumatic head injury, and it could be a case of “shaken baby syndrome.”
As with all capital murder cases, a large number of motions were filed in the case. In one motion, the defense attacked the scientific validity of “shaken baby syndrome.” Dulle’s defense lawyers argued abuse could not be assumed by the presence of certain diagnostic factors which underlies the theory of the “shaken baby syndrome,” and further inquiry was needed.
The defense attorneys wrote “shaken baby syndrome” was an unreliable, unproven and highly controversial hypothesis- never validated, and a theory largely been debunked and not generally accepted.
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