Elijah's Story: Campaign Against Shaken Baby Syndrome
By Hilary Groutage Smith
Originally published in The Salt Lake Tribune, June 21, 2001
OGDEN — Not an hour of a day goes by that Emily Fisher does not think of her son, Elijah. Typical of any mother? Perhaps.
But Elijah Fisher only exists now on videotape, immortalized in an intimate story told in the name of preventing Shaken Baby Syndrome, the reason Elijah's life came to an end after 16 months.
Fisher spends every day educating any new parent she meets about the dangers of shaking their children.
"There is no profile for this perpetrator," Fisher says, the conviction in her voice defying her 22 years of age.
"Anyone is capable. That's the scariest thing."
In the case of Elijah, the perpetrator was his father, Jason Whittier, who is serving a sentence of 12 years to life at Utah State Prison for the death of his son.
"It's been hell. People call me baby killer," he says in a tearful, taped interview. "But the time in here won't even compare with the rest of my life. I've got to live with the fact that these hands took the life of my baby son."
Whittier's interview is part of "Elijah's Story," a 30-minute video used by the Ogden-based National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome as part of its education program. Fisher, featured in the video from beginning to end—giving birth to her son and then visiting his grave—works at the center full time, telling her story over and over to school groups and classes designed to give fathers of newborns the tools they need to cope with crying babies.
"This is an awful, senseless way for someone to die," Fisher says. "It just has to stop."
Last year, 27 deaths from Shaken Baby Syndrome were reported at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City, but the figure is likely higher, says Amy Wicks, information specialist at the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. Sometimes the deaths are listed as general child abuse or blunt head force trauma.
"No one knows for sure how many there are," Wicks says.
The center is determined to prevent deaths from shaking by offering a class called Dads 101. The center, which evolved into its own program last year out of the National Child Abuse Prevention Center, developed the curriculum last fall and offers it across the country. Class locations in Utah include Hill Air Force Base and Ogden's McKay Dee Hospital.
After new fathers are taught how to bathe and care for their infants, they are taught how to cope with their inevitable crying.
Since 70 percent of the perpetrators in shaken baby cases are men, teaching them that it is safe to let babies cry after meeting basic needs is important.
Adam Salazar, education coordinator at the center, says Fisher's contributions to Dads 101 is invaluable. He brings her in for the final class session, after fathers have learned to diaper and bathe their babies.
"We are just so fortunate. To have Emily there to talk about it firsthand really drives the point home," he says.
It is undoubtedly Fisher's startling honesty about her life and her son that smacks people square in the chest and gets their attention. She never married her baby's father, she says, because it made more sense for her son to grow up with two loving parents who loved him and did not pretend to love each other.
She thought Whittier was familiar with toddlers, she says, since he had a 2-year-old stepbrother. And, he never was abusive toward her or her son.
Indeed, home video shows Whittier tenderly washing and bathing his son after the boy has demolished his first birthday cake.
So when she was summoned to the hospital Dec. 21, 1998, she thought Elijah had fallen and needed stitches. When an Ogden police detective told her Whittier had admitted to shaking, punching and dropping their son, she was stunned.
"I thought it was an awful dream to have about your baby's father and that I should just wake up," she says.
Elijah died Dec. 24, 1998. His obituary, more evidence of his mother's forthright character, listed the cause of death as Shaken Baby Syndrome.
"I always read obituaries and it always irritates me when people don't list the cause of death. Especially with kids," she says.
Not only did she list the cause of her son's death, but when reporters called, she answered. A television crew interviewed Fisher, her family and Whittier's mother and stepfather at Elijah's funeral.
Their message: Babies are fragile and shaking them even for a moment can be fatal.
It wasn't long before Fisher went to work for the national center to educate other parents. Therapy, books, friends and family have helped her move through the tragedy. She has a boyfriend now and wants a big wedding this fall. She still keeps in touch with Whittier's family, and knows that Whittier requested a copy of "Elijah's Story" earlier this year. She does not know if he has seen the video and has had no contact with him since the court proceedings ended.
There are still bad days, Fisher says, but she has stopped waking in the middle of the night thinking that just this once, she'll let her young son sleep with her. And she doesn't worry about him anymore while she is driving.
"I've stopped looking in the rearview mirror to see if he's OK in his carseat," she says.
She is not certain how she feels about Whittier. Hate is a strong word, she says, and maybe what she feels toward him isn't hatred.
"I hope it's not. Maybe it's anger. Maybe that's what keeps me going when I get up to do these presentations," she says. "And maybe, if I ever stop feeling that, I won't work here anymore."
