.....
Nicholas Ryan Goodrich II
January 2005 - December 12, 2006

Rachael had gone to work that day and left her son alone with her boyfriend, Raytone Williams. She was home again by 3:00pm and she says that she checked on her son and he was in his crib and seemed to be doing okay. She said he was moving around and was fine:

By 10:00pm when they checked on him again, he was lifeless. 

Raytone said that he immediately started CPR  on Nicholas and that blood started to come out of his nose:

Raytone says that he never hurt Nicholas:

The prosecutor says that Rachael knew that Nicholas was in a danger
and she refused to help him. Rachael says she had no idea that Raytone was capable of doing this:

Red flags went up when Rachael told prosecutors that he had fallen off of the couch.

Shannon Goodrich, the aunt of Nicholas said that she and other family members tried to help him by calling the Franklin County Children's
services:

Photos of bruises on Nicholas's head were taken by a baby sitter who made phone calls to the Children's Services as well, still, nothing was done to protect Nicholas from harm. Rachael Ewers claims that case
workers never contacted her, not once.

Pictures taken by a baby sitter who also called the Children's Services did no good. The agencies that were supposed to be in place to help and protect Nicholas, failed him. Rachael Ewers claims that she was never contacted by them at all.

As always seems to be the case, the Children's Services are doing an investigation into what went wrong in the case of this abused to death child. It seems like the only way to make them snap to attention is for a child to die. Then everyone wants to know what went wrong and what can they do to improve the system.

Nicholas would become the fifth Ohio baby who is believed to have been shaken by a baby sitter and he would become the second one of those children to die. Duy Leon Cenobio died on as a result of having been shaken by her mothers boyfriend. Once again, I'll say it, these mothers care more about their boyfriends than they care about
their own children. Another child was shaken and remained on life support while two others will survive, however, they will have lifelong disabilities as well as physical and mental problems.

Rachael Ewers told police that she thought Nicholas had bruised his chin in a fall he took from the couch and she added that she thought that Raytone might have bruised him while performing CPR that evening. Police Captain Bruce Pijanowski didn't believe this stating that the bruises seemed to have been caused deliberately and said there was "significant physical trauma" after seeing Nicholas in the hospital. Nicholas was already dead when he was brought into the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital at 10:25pm.

Raytone Williams was held on $500,000. bond. 

Shaking a baby caused the brain to fly around in the skull and in the case of babies, the skull has a lot of room. The blood vessels tear and this leaves a bleeding pattern that shows what is known as a medical fingerprint and proves that a baby was shaken. 

Lisa Carroll is a nurse who teaches how to prevent shaken baby syndrome. Lisa says that people need to be educated as for the real dangers in shaking a baby and is pushing for laws that would make it mandatory for new parents and child care providers to be educated on the dangers of shaking babies. Lisa is pushing for advertisements on television to spread the word:

Update:
In June of 2007, Rachael Ewers plead guilty to three counts of child endangerment. Raytone Wilson refused to accept any of the plea deals that had been offered to him, claiming that he would never hurt Nicholas:

I guess he forgot what he had said just 24 hours earlier. Raytone had admitted that he had picked Nicholas up by his throat and thrown him to try to get him to stop crying because he was playing a video game.

After time cards for Raytone and Rachel were looked at, police said it was obvious that there were times when they were BOTH at work and no one was home with Nicholas. This means that there at times, Nicholas was home alone, in his crib for a long time:

Rachael was pregnant with her second child and she was facing up to 15 years in prison. 

June 2007:
Judge W. Duncan Whitney sentenced Raytone Wilson to a prison sentence of 15 years to life for murdering Nicholas. Sadly, he will be eligible for parole in 15 years. We can only hope that no one will ever let him out!

October 11, 2007
In court, Assistant Prosecutor Alison Peters, asked the judge to be a voice for Nicholas saying that there wasn't anyone in the court to speak on his behalf:

After listening to the defense and the prosecution, the judge gave Rachel four years for count one, five years for count two and four years for count three:

Rachael Ewers, who was 23 at the time, was sentenced to serve a total of 13 years to be served consecutively at the Ohio Reformatory For Women in Marysville. Rachael asked the judge to give her a second chance, stating that she had a new baby girl at home:

Judge W. Duncan Whitney had no sympathy for her when he said:

Call this number to report child abuse ANY WHERE in the United States!
1-800-4-A-Child  1-800-422-4453

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