NJ baby sitter charged in toddler’s death testifies

A baby sitter in New Jersey accused of fatally shaking a toddler described as she tried to save the child from choking on apple sauce in 2012.

Michelle Heale testified before a jury in Monmouth County on Tuesday as she demonstrated on a doll how she hit 14-month-old Mason Hess between his shoulder blades.

Heale said she “may have hit him harder” than she should have and the child’s head “snapped back fast” and “like a ragdoll, he went completely limp.”

Under cross-examination, Heale said she couldn’t “think of an instance why you would shake a baby.”

The toddler was flown to a children’s hospital in Philadelphia, where he died three days later.

Doctors later determined the boy suffered severe brain, spine and retinal damage from a violent shaking