Burlington Doctor Takes Stand, Denies Hitting Child That Died

BURLINGTON, MA —The Burlington doctor accused of killing a six-month-old girl and running an unlicensed daycare center said "No" when she took the stand in her own trial and was asked if she had hit the child with a blunt object. But Pallavi Macharla, 45, also said Wednesday "I told a few lies" when first questioned by Burlington Police. Macharla has maintained the child became unresponsive after a feeding on March 27, 2017.

The child died three days later, and a state Medical Examiner's report was eventually changed the cause of death to "undetermined." Prosecutors have built their case on the orginal report, which said the child, who died three days after being taken to Boston Children's Hospital, was "violenty shaken."

In her testimony in Middlesex Superior Court Wednesday, Macharla said she did not initially tell police a friend had come to visit on the day the child was taken to the hospital. She also did not tell investigators that she cared for other children in her home.

Last week, a former Massachusetts Medical Examiner's office employee said she changed a 2014 finding in the autopsy of a death of a six-month-old baby after reading medical articles that contradicted her previous beliefs on the case. Anna McDonald, who was performing her first autopsy involving suspected fatal baby shaken syndrome, left the office to take a similar job in North Carolina after performing the autopsy on Ridhima Dhekane, but reversed her opinion on the cause of death to "undetermined" more than a year later.

Macharla was released on $25,000 bail in December 2015 after the state Medical Examiners Office reversed its decision that the baby died after being violently shaken. Diagnostic tests and studies were performed, which revealed the baby was suffering from diffuse subdural hemorrhaging, diffuse subarachnoid hemorrhaging, diffuse and multilayered bilateral retinal hemorrhages and retinoschisis.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).