Peabody woman charged in baby’s death injured in fall

SALEM – The case against Jennifer Ward, the 38-year-old Peabody mother charged with shaking and slamming her 9-month old daughter to death last year, was continued because the accused fell and injured her back while in custody.In Salem Superior Court Tuesday morning, Assistant District Attorney Kate B. MacDougall reported to Judge Howard J. Whitehead that Ward was not being transported from Framingham State Prison because she had fallen at the facility and injured her back.Her injuries were undetermined, said MacDougall, and her attorney, Thomas J. Barrett, was trying to get to the prison to see her and establish her injuries.The case was on for the filing of preliminary trial suppression motions. It was continued for the same event to July 9.Ward, who lived at 30 Keyes Drive in Peabody, is charged with murder in the first degree in connection with the death of her infant daughter, Jocelyn Mae Ward-Anderson.The infant died from abusive head trauma, commonly known as shaken baby syndrome, on Nov. 21 at Children’s Hospital in Boston, three days after Ward took the child to Lahey Clinic in Peabody.Investigators say that Jocelyn was the victim of three separate attacks, in which she was smashed down on her bottom, her limbs were violently twisted and her body violently shaken.Ward had a history of drug abuse and when her daughter was born on Feb. 22, she tested positive for cocaine.The Department of Social Service had been involved in the case. After Ward successfully completed several drug treatment programs her child was legally returned to her on July 18.In the meantime, the father of the child, Robert Anderson, went back to prison because of drug use.Ward and her daughter spent most of the fall living in Kennebunk, Maine, with Ward’s parents.On Nov. 18 she drove back from Maine to her new apartment on Keyes Drive.That afternoon Robert Anderson called and said he heard his little daughter making normal baby sounds.But Ward expressed irritation and complained to Anderson that their child was “always under her feet.”Then some time after midnight on Nov. 19, a friend of Ward, Josef Ferrini, showed up to spend the night as planned.He told investigators he could hear Jocelyn crying abnormally loud upstairs and checked on the child.When Ward came out of the bathroom, she told Ferrini that Jocelyn had been crying all night.Ferrini brought the infant downstairs, noticing discoloration to her forehead. Within minutes the child began vomiting and lost all consciousness.They brought her to Lahey Hospital just after 2 a.m., and she was then rushed to Children’s Hospital in Boston.Doctors determined that her brain was undergoing massive swelling and that she had bleeding on her brain.There also was visible bruising on the child’s arms as well as her belly, MacDougall reported during a hearing.On Nov. 21, Jocelyn was declared brain dead, but was maintained on life support for the next two days so her organs could be donated.Ward has pleaded innocent to the charge and remains held on without bail pending the outcome of her case.A conviction on the charge carries a life sentence behind bars, with no chance of ever being paroled.