Jay Biggs
My husband Jay Lewis Biggs was just sentenced to life in prison without parole for the rape and murder of our 5 month old daughter Jaydee Biggs, who passed away June 5th, 2006.
I as well as other family members and a few friends believe and know in our hearts that he is an innocent man. Now I know how we met is not important, what is important is what has happened over the past two years, from the time she passed away till the time of trial. Also about Jaydee and her medical condtions. Jaydee was born 8 weeks early. When she was about 2 days old we were told about maple syrup syndrome. Also known as maple syrup urine disease or MSUD. This disease results from a deficient enzyme (BCKD) necessary for the breakdown of the amino acidsleucine, isoleucine and valine. Without the BCKD enzyme, these amino acids build up to toxic levels in the body. When she was about 3 days old or so one of her lungs collapsed and the hospital was able to fix it. Then at 8 days old she was then removed from the breathing machine and was breathing on her own. She then was released when she was just 4 weeks old. When she was about 2 months old she started to have problems feeding and keeping her formula down and she was not gaining weight like she should have been. I informed her doctor who did nothing. She was about 4 months old when we started to notice that she was keeping her head turned to the left side of her body. We told her doctor at her next appoint ment and we were then told that she had a condition known as torticollis. This condition is where her next muscles on her left side were not formed correctly. She was then put into therapy. At her first appointment I was told to put a blanket next to her head to help strengthen that side of her of her neck. We were also given neck stretching exercises for her. Jay was unable to go to the appointments due to him working, but I did make sure to tell him everything I was told along with what exercises to do and what to do with the blanket.
On the morning of June 4th 2006 which was a Sunday. During this time we were trying to help out a friend of mine and she was living with us. That morning we had asked her if she had somewhere she could go because we were going to church and didn’t want her at the house by herself. We then later decided we were not going to take the children with us so we had my mom come and watch them and later returned around 1 pm. After I feed Jaydee and we played with Alex (our son) it was time for them to go to bed. Between 8-8:30pm Jay proceeded to take them upstairs to bed and came back down about 3-4 minutes later and began to clean because we were expecting company, the boyfriend or whatever he was at the time of the girl who was staying with us. He was coming over for a talk or intervention per say, because we wanted to know what she was planning on doing. He showed up around 9:30 pm. Jay then left around 9:45-10pm to go pick up this girl from work and when he showed up at her work she was not there. He then called me around 10:20 to ask if she showed up and when I said no, he then told me that he would wait around for a couple of minutes to see if she would show up. When I hung up with him I called the number she had left me to see why she was not at work and to make sure she was ok and that’s when she told me she went to the hospital and is now on her way home. She never showed. Jay then got home around 10:30 seeing as we didn’t live that far from where she worked. He did leave one other time to go look down the street to see if he could see her coming home. When she still didn’t show up around 12:50 we had to call it a night and the boyfriend then left at around 1 am. Jay and I put her things on the porch and locked up and proceeded up to bed. On our way into our bedroom I glanced in, I did not stop but I also didn’t notice anything unusual. But I also was tired seeing as we stayed up longer then what I’m used to so I was half a sleep. About 2 am or so the boyfriend did come back to get her stuff and then called my cell phone to tell me he was unable to find her and that he would take her stuff. We awoke the next morning around 7-7:15am; I headed down stairs to make his lunch for work. I didn’t look in the kid’s room because they usually slept till about 9 am. Jay was getting up as I was walking down stairs and got dressed. As he started to come down stairs he said he noticed that there was window open in the kids’ room, which he opened the night before because it was a little warm. That’s when he noticed that Jaydee had a blanket over face her face. Jay said during his testimony that he was thinking to himself "Please let me pull this blanket off and see her smiling face." He also proceeded to say that when he pulled the blanket off he could see that she was stiff and she had one eye open and that she looked like a doll. I heard him scream and headed up stairs, he then said that he picked her up and placed her on the floor and thought about administering CPR but knew it was too late. When I came up stairs I couldn’t get past the doorway because that’s when I seen him starting to get up with her in his arms. He said he didn’t want me to see her on the floor so he picked her back up and put her back in the bassinet. At the time I was freaking out didn’t know what do, so I called my mom, it’s like I was frozen. Jay said he couldn’t call 911, we both were in shock. He proceeded outside and then had a trash collector call from his (Jays) phone. I don’t remember much after the cops and everybody else showed up. I do remember Jay telling me that we have to go down the police station. I was thinking why? My daughter just passed away am I not allowed to have time to grieve? They took Jay in a room and question him; it didn’t seem it took that long. Then they took me in, they questioned me for a little bit then they left the room and I was all by myself for about an hour, or so I was told by many of our family members. Before we left we were asked if they had anymore questions can they call us to come back down, they did say that they shouldn’t but if so could we. We told them yes. We all went back to my sister’s house and Dect. Grizzard called Jays cell phone about 1-2 hours later to see if we could come back down tomorrow. Jay responded that we could. So when he got off the phone Jay told me that we had to go back down. Again I was thinking why? Still no time to grieve the lost of my daughter. He (Grizzard) then called back and asks if we could send Alex home with one of our family members for the night, but he then put on a case work from jobs and family services to see if the family member was I guess qualified to take him. I do remember saying to my mom they are going to take him and that I don’t understand why they are taking my son from us. They then approved his parents to take him. That’s when we were told by a few of our family members that we need to go and talk to a lawyer because that just doesn’t sound right. Why would they ask for our other child to go with a family member but that family member has to be approved? Wouldn’t it just be like him staying the night? The next day we went and talked to a lawyer just talked and asked for advice. That’s when we were told that they had no reason to have us come back down because they already talked to us. So we agreed not to go. That’s when Grizzard called Jays phone and asked where we were. We said that we were on our way to the funeral home to plan her burial. That’s when he asked if we were going to show up and Jay proceeded to tell him no. He (Jay) got this look of shock on his face. After Jay hung the phone he said that Grizzard became defensive and started to ask where Alex was, Jay told him he (Alex) was with his parents. He (Grizzard) ended up calling his (Jays) parents and had them bring Alex down to the station and that’s when they took Alex. We didn’t even get to grieve for the loss of our daughter when they took him. The day we went to court for Alex was the first day we had heard what the allegations about what happened to Jaydee were. I didn’t believe them then and I refuse to believe them now.
They arrested Jay on April 9th, 2008. Almost two years after she passed away. During his trial the girl couldn’t even point Jay out along with being caught in many lies along with the boy who we had over that night. His (Jays) expert witness, Dr. Werner Spitz a prominent medical examiner said he believes she passed away from SIDS or from the obstruction of airways. He found no evidence that she died of suffocation. HE followed that by saying "while it’s possible that pressure could have been applied to her face he would have expected to see finger markings. " There would be a delineation of fingers", he said, "The autopsy report does not indicate a hand was applied to the face." He also said that the stomach material that was present likely would have been wiped away if a blanket would have been placed over the infants face. Also he said that he found no evidence of blood, sexual trauma or scarring. He said that he sees irritation and a large amount of fecal matter and very poor hygiene and infection. He also said that the bruising on the baby could have been caused by the use of a speculum during the autopsy. The one thing that was in the autopsy report that looked odd to me was that she had ecoli in her blood.
I know my husband could not have committed this crime if there was even a crime. He loved his children to much and he would have done anything to protect them and me. Still to this day he will do anything for us. Jay was never an emotional guy, we have been together for 5 years and I have only seen him cry once and that was at Jaydees wake. He is the type of guy that like to have control of a sitution.