This letter is sent to promote awareness and to ask for assistance in the case of Paul Cotter who was accused of shaking a 23-month old toddler. On October 26, 2006 Alyssa Kay Logue was pronounced dead at Cincinnati Children‘s Hospital. Alyssa lived with her mother Christy Lowery and her two brothers Tyler and Skyler Lowery in Lebanon, Ohio. The following is information pertaining to Alyssa’s death and the innocence of the man accused of her murder. At the time of Alyssa’s death Mr. Cotter was Ms. Lowery’s live-in boyfriend. He was working at two jobs in Lebanon and Ms. Lowery was also working full-time as a pharmacist. During that time both he and Christy were responsible for her own children as well as his three children from his previous marriage.On October 18th Nicholas Goller, long time friend and babysitter, cared for Alyssa and the sons so that Ms. Lowry and Mr. Cotter could go on a date to celebrate Ms. Lowery‘s birthday. Following Mr. Goller’s care Ms. Lowery found blisters on the bottoms of Alyssa feet. Ms. Lowery sent her son to her neighbor, Tammy Blanton, so that Ms. Blanton could come look at the blisters and offer advice. Ms. Blanton advised Ms. Lowery to take Alyssa to the emergency room. Ms. Blanton claims that Ms. Lowery refused and then revealed a contusion on Alyssa forehead. She also claims that Ms. Lowery stated that she did not want to go to the hospital for fear that they would believe the injuries were child abuse. During their conversation Mr. Cotter arrived home and held Alyssa. At that time Ms. Lowery determined it was prudent not to go to the hospitalOn October 20th Alyssa was left again in the care of Nick Goller. When Alyssa woke up for the day he called Ms. Lowery at work to tell her. While on the phone he noticed that she had a blister on the crown of her head and told Ms. Lowery that it was there. She instructed him to bring Alyssa to her job at Olde Town Medicine in Middletown, Ohio. From there they took Alyssa to Dayton Children’s Medical Center. However, it is noted in the medical reports from Dayton that Alyssa first received care at Middletown Regional Hospital and was from there, transferred to Dayton.Alyssa was examined at Dayton Children’s and it was determined that the blister on her head was similar to those on her feet found one day prior. Alyssa did not seem to be in pain from the blisters and a dermatologist was consulted, they were determined not to be burns. At that time the Child Abuse advocacy team was also called. They noted bruises on the lower extremities and one on her forehead. Ms Lowery told the medical team that the contusion on the forehead was from her son’s bunk bed ladder falling and hitting her head. The other bruises were from her “getting into everything.†Child Abuse Advocacy ruled out abuse and the hospital admitted Alyssa for observation. They gave Alyssa clindamycin, an antibiotic, through an IV and began to run tests as well as wrapping the blisters on her feet. The medical team was unable to diagnose the blisters on her feet and head so they called the blisters infectious disease. They discharged Alyssa the afternoon of October 22nd with instructions to return should Alyssa develop a fever or if the lesions worsened.Alyssa seemed well that evening and throughout most of October 23rd . That morning, Ms Lowery left Alyssa in the care of Paul Cotter until almost 9:00 pm when she arrived home. Mr. Cotter and Ms. Lowery then washed Alyssa’s feet during which she vomited. Ms. Lowery took Alyssa’s temperature and she had a fever of 101.5 Mr. Cotter had to go to work, leaving Alyssa in care of Ms. Lowery. Later that evening Nick Goller, his sister, Jennifer Hollandsworth and her husband Justin came to the house. That night Alyssa’s fever reached 102.5 and Ms. Lowery gave Alyssa Children’s Motrin to attempt to break the fever. Alyssa was out of bed most of the night. Alyssa was not taken to the hospital as per the doctor’s instructions.At some point the Hollandsworths left and Mr. Goller remained with Ms. Lowery and Alyssa. Around 5:45am on October 24th Mr. Cotter returned from work and Mr. Goller left. Ms. Lowery, Mr. Cotter and Alyssa then all got into the same bed to sleep until the alarm went off for Ms. Lowery’s sons to go to school. Mr. Goller returned at approximately 7:30am to make sure that boys got on the bus and then left after the sons boarded the bus. Ms Lowery prepared for work and left at approximately 8:35am. Shortly following Ms. Lowery’s departure Mr. Cotter gave Alyssa two juice boxes, which she then vomited. After cleaning the mess he and Alyssa took a nap in an easy chair and he awoke again at approximately 9:30am. He then put Alyssa in her crib and went back to sleep. Around 11:15am Alyssa’s grandmother, Mary Logue, came to visit Alyssa and went with Mr. Cotter to see her asleep in the crib. Mrs. Logue brushed Alyssa’s hair away from her face and Alyssa stirred in her sleep. They both exited the and Mr. Cotter and Mrs. Logue talked until Ms. Lowery returned from work at 1:15 p.m. She went to Alyssa’s room to get her out of bed and found Alyssa unresponsive so Mr. Cotter called 911 emergency. Alyssa was flown by Air-Care to Cincinnati Children‘s Hospital.Upon arrival, she was taken in for a CT scan where a subdural hemorrhage and a right to left brain shift was found. Alyssa was taken to the OR where two blood clots were found in her brain. It was noted that there was “old blood†in her brain. She also suffered a retinal hemorrhage. Surgeons worked to save Alyssa life and she was in a coma. Based on her condition medical professionals claimed that the time the injury had have been approximately 10:30 a.m. on October 24th. On October 26, 2006 they pronounced Alyssa dead. Shriner’s Burn Institute examined the blisters on Alyssa’s feet and they noted that blisters were “ to be consistent with burns.†The autopsy report ruled Alyssa’s death as a homicide by “blunt impact to head.†This making Alyssa’s death a police matter.Lebanon Police questioned: Ms. Lowery and Mr. Goller, Mrs. Hollandsworth and Mr. Cotter. Mr. Goller and Ms Lowery took a lie detector test and showed signs of deception. Mr. Cotter did not take a lie detector test as he was advised not to because they are inadmissible in court. He spoke with police the day Alyssa was taken to Cincinnati Children’s and two other times after that offering his full cooperation at all times.Following Alyssa‘s death, Ms. Lowery‘s ex-husband, Tommy Lowery, came into town because his children, Tyler and Skylar were taken into foster care as there was a murder investigation. During this time there was an altercation between Paul and Mr. Lowery because Mr. Lowery felt that it was inappropriate for Mr. Cotter to call Ms. Lowery during the investigation and Ms. Lowery called the police and claimed that Mr. Cotter was menacing them. While at Mc Donald’s in Lebanon, Mr. Cotter was arrested for a probation violation and incarcerated during the length of the entire murder investigation.Mr. Cotter was given a court appointed attorney, Mr. Don Oda, who only met with Mr. Cotter three times and only spoke with two people for character witnesses and never contacted Mr. Cotter’s family. In fact, Mr. Oda never spoke with anyone other than myself and Ms. Blanton. He also failed to hire any medical experts to rebuttal the prosecution. In February 2007 he was indicted for murder facing 15 year to life in prison and plead not guilty. In September the state offered a plea deal for the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. The prosecution offered him a sentence of 10 years of which three years are mandatory. Mr. Oda advised Mr. Cotter to accept the deal. Mr. Cotter accepted the deal because he felt that he would not be properly represented in court by Mr. Oda, due to his lack of enthusiasm and interest in the case. Mr. Oda told Mr. Cotter, “I could win this case, I’m just not going to. I didn’t hire medical experts because I didn’t want to look desperate.†Mr. Cotter was unaware that he could request a different counselor and postpone the trial. But wanted to later file for ineffective assistance of counsel as he felt this was in violation of his 6th amendment rights.These events leave me with unanswered questions that I feel were gaps in the case. For example, the blister on Alyssa’s head is conspicuously missing from the medical reports after Alyssa was taken to Cincinnati Children‘s hospital. The EMT noted that there was a contusion on Alyssa forehead as well as the blisters on the feet. I wonder why the blisters on the scalp weren’t noted either by the EMT or in the autopsy report. When Shrinner’s Burn Institute looked at blisters on feet they said they were consistent to be with burns, yet they never mentioned the blister on head. I am left wondering why Dayton felt these were infectious and Shriner’s felt they were burns. I wonder if Cincinnati consulted Dayton about the blisters. With that lack of communication between the doctor’s who treated Alyssa within days of one another it leaves room for key information to be missing from Cincinnati.It is also interesting to note that when Alyssa was at Dayton Children’s and the child abuse team was called, by law they should have done a CT scan for the contusion on her forehead, this however, was never done. A CT scan could have revealed defects or injury in the brain that may have killed Alyssa. Dayton also began treating Alyssa with antibiotics before they began testing which can alter results. Dayton didn’t perform a spinal tap which could have revealed spinal meningitis. After her discharge approximately 24 hours later Alyssa was running a fever, acting lethargic and vomiting. Ms. Lowery was advised that should those symptoms persist she was to return Alyssa to the hospital immediately, which Ms. Lowery failed to do.Even more interesting is that Alyssa, other than the condition of her brain, showed no tell-tale signs of abuse such as bruising around the rib cage, which is indicative of Shaken Baby Syndrome. While at Cincinnati she was given CT scan in which doctors found a subdural hemorrhage on the right side of the brain. There was a right to left brain shift with no skull fractures. They also found old blood in the brain, being that Alyssa was hospitalized just days ago and not administered a CT scan then, it is possible that this blood on the brain was missed and was causing pressure. While the doctors diagnosed Alyssa’s brain damage as acute, this leaves no explanation for the old blood in her brain.The story about the contusion on Alyssa’s forehead has changed over time. In a email Ms. Lowery told me that medical professionals lied that she never told them about any ladder. Mr. Cotter stated that she was running from their puppy and tripped and fell, hitting her head on the computer desk chair. We have in essence, three stories about Alyssa’s head injury. It could have been the desk chair which Mr. Cotter says Alyssa ran into. We have a ladder that fell on the child based on one telling by Ms. Lowery and we have no ladder, just a mysterious bruise based on another story told by Ms. Lowery. No matter which way the story is told the child had a contusion on her head which could have been accountable or contributing to the brain bleeding.