PHILADELPHIA – A judge is refusing to dismiss murder charges against a fundamentalist Christian in the faith-healing death of his son, noting that another one of his children had died four years earlier.
A court order from the first case requires the man and his wife, Herbert and Catherine Schaible (SHY'-bull), to seek immediate medical help if another child was sick or injured.
They've told police that they instead sat and rocked their 8-month-old son Brandon before he died of pneumonia in April.
Defense lawyer Bobby Hoof asked a judge to dismiss the third-degree murder charge Wednesday on grounds there was no malice. The judge says that argument would be stronger had the earlier death not happened.
Catherine Schaible is due in court Wednesday afternoon for the same motion to dismiss the case.
