| On the afternoon of June 18, 2018, a woman known in court records as L.S. took her two-year-old daughter, A.S., to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, Maryland. The child was vomiting, and blood had been found in her diaper.
In the emergency room, healthcare workers observed swelling and bleeding in the girl’s vaginal area. Corporal Christine Kirkpatrick of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office was called to investigate.
Kirkpatrick came to the hospital and interviewed L.S. and her friend, M.F. The two women lived together, and M.F. often cared for A.S. when L.S. was working. The women told Kirkpatrick about the events prior to the child’s admission to the hospital.
M.F. said she had bathed A.S. at about 9 p.m. on June 17 and did not notice anything that indicated physical trauma or pain. L.S. said she returned home around midnight with 23-year-old Tavon Tull, a sporadic boyfriend. L.S. said she slept in one room, and Tull slept in the air-conditioned room with A.S. L.S. said that Tull was gone when she woke up at around 6 a.m., although he returned to the house that morning before L.S. left for work.
Kirkpatrick went with L.S. to the house to take photographs and collect potential evidence and then returned to the hospital and spoke with a nurse treating A.S.
Kirkpatrick would write in her report: “When I spoke to Anne, the nurse attending to A.S. during the examination, she stated that the vaginal area of A.S. appeared red, swollen, and bloody. After the forensic nurse, Cheryl Greenfarb, completed her exam she advised that she took swabs and photos. [Greenfarb] advised that the trauma was to the interior vaginal area, that there was no injury to the outside surrounding vaginal area.”
L.S. had been texting Tull during the afternoon of June 18, while A.S. was at the hospital. He asked: “So what you think happen.”
L.S. texted: “She was touched definitely and they wanna know who all was round her. Was she still crying last night? I told them she cried when we was in the room but I should have checked her diaper. It’s full of blood and now they gotta swab her and run some tests.”
At 7:06 p.m., Tull texted, “You died bitch.”
L.S. responded: “For what?? My child is gone. I never said you did nothing.”
L.S. showed the message to another sheriff’s deputy and said she believed Tull thought she was accusing him of sexually assaulting her daughter. The deputy helped L.S. get a restraining order against Tull that night.
On June 19, Kirkpatrick spoke with Eunice Esposito, the lead forensic nurse at the hospital. Esposito said she agreed with Greenfarb’s findings. Kirkpatrick also interviewed other residents of L.S.’s house, and they were in agreement about where A.S. was sleeping and who was with her prior to her apparent injury.
In an application for an arrest warrant, Kirkpatrick wrote: “The timeline indicates that Tavon Tull was the only one alone with the victim for several hours unsupervised between the last known time the child was uninjured and when the injury was discovered.”
Tull was arrested on June 20, 2018. He gave a statement to Kirkpatrick and denied sexually abusing A.S. He said that A.S. had woken up when he and L.S. arrived at the house around midnight. He said he gave the girl some water, and everyone went to sleep: L.S. in her bed; A.S. on the couch: and Tull on the floor next to A.S. Tull said he got up around 6 a.m. and walked over to his grandmother’s house. As part of the investigation, deputies seized Tull’s cellphone and obtained his DNA and fingernail clippings.
Tull was charged with sexual abuse of a minor, second-degree rape, third-degree sexual offense, second-degree child abuse, and second-degree assault.
The Forensic Sciences Division of the Maryland State Police reported on November 20, 2018, that Tull was excluded as a contributor to genetic material found on a genital swab collected from A.S. Similarly, genetic material found on Tull’s nail clippings excluded A.S.
Tull opted for a bench trial, which began in Wicomico County Circuit Court on January 7, 2019, before Judge S. James Sarbanes. Tull’s attorney was Archibald McFadden.
T.S., the girl’s grandmother, testified that A.S. stayed with her in Delaware until the afternoon of June 17. L.S., M.F., and her fiancée, B.T., testified about the events after the girl came home. None of them said they saw Tull abuse the girl. There was also conflicting testimony about what other adults and children might have been at the house between the afternoon of June 17 and when A.S. was taken to the hospital on June 18.
The state introduced A.S.’s medical records, including photographs of her purported injuries. Greenfarb, who was certified to perform sexual-assault examinations, testified as an expert witness. She testified about the examination performed on A.S. and said that the girl’s vaginal area was very red and swollen, making it difficult to view her vaginal vault. This appeared to conflict with Kirkpatrick’s report, which said that Greenfarb had told her of trauma to the internal vaginal area.
The prosecutor asked Greenfarb how A.S. received these injuries. Greenfarb said: “With the way that this area looked with the bleeding and the fluid that was dripping from the area, and the swelling noted, in my opinion this is a traumatic injury done by an object of some sort, whether it be, I don’t know, digital, an object, anything that can cause injury to that area. This obviously is a small area so it can’t be something that’s very big, you know, because it would not have been able to fit in there. But this is obvious trauma to this region.”
Esposito, Greenfarb’s supervisor, also testified as an expert witness on sexual-abuse examinations. She said she examined A.S. on June 25, 2018, to see if the child’s injuries were healing, and that she agreed with Greenfarb’s findings of trauma to the vaginal area. She said an injury this extensive couldn’t be caused by aggressive wiping.
Asked when the trauma might have occurred, Esposito testified that, “My thought is that that occurred within that timeframe of about midnight to when the child had come in for the exam. And also seeing the blood in the diaper. So it was all very fresh. And it wasn’t old blood that was coming out from that vaginal area, it was fresh blood. It wasn’t dark and older blood. So her exam revealed to me that it was a fairly recent event.”
On cross-examination, Esposito said she was basing her opinion in part on the history L.S. provided the hospital’s medical staff. “I just know that looking at that I can say it was a fairly recent injury but I can’t tell you it happened at midnight,” she said. “I can’t tell you it happened at 11:30 or 10:00, that I can’t tell you. I can tell you it’s a recent injury.”
After the state rested, McFadden moved for a judgment of acquittal. Sarbanes granted the motion for the charge of sexual abuse of a minor. Tull did not testify, and McFadden presented no evidence.
In closing arguments, delivered on January 25, 2019, the prosecutor said there was clear evidence A.S. had been sexually abused and that Tull had the opportunity to commit the crime. In addition, the prosecutor said Tull’s response to L.S.’s text message “shows basically that he felt that he was being accused of this injury and his response was not ‘It wasn’t me,’ his response was ‘You’re dead,’ pretty much.”
McFadden said in his closing argument that the comings and goings at the house were too chaotic to isolate Tull as the only person with the opportunity to commit the crime. He said none of the forensic evidence connected Tull to the incident and the fact that Tull returned to the house on the morning of June 18 and had sex with L.S. appeared to fly in the face of consciousness of guilt.
In addition, he said Tull’s text message—“You died bitch”—was ambiguous. It wasn’t responsive to L.S.’s earlier texts, he said, and the state couldn’t assume it was a threat. After hearing the closing arguments, Judge Sarbanes convicted Tull of second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense, and second-degree assault. He acquitted him on the child abuse charge.
“From the evidence that the Court has in front of it the Court can only draw the conclusion that not just did Mr. Tull, Tavon Tull, the Defendant, have the opportunity but was the only one, based on the child’s behavior and the timeline, that would have had the opportunity to have committed this offense,” he said.
At his sentencing on March 21, 2019, Tull asked for leniency. “Your Honor, I fear like it’s unfair that I was falsely accused of raping a one-year-old girl that I didn’t do,” he said. “Nobody know who messed with that little girl. Nobody knows who is lying or who is telling the truth. I have a family out there that supports me and that they know that I wouldn’t do nothing like that.”
Judge Sarbanes sentenced Tull to 20 years in prison.
Tull appealed, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the convictions. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed the conviction on April 6, 2020.
Tull filed a pro se motion for post-conviction relief in 2021. Nora Fakhri of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender was appointed to represent him. In early 2023, Fakhri filed a new motion and sought copies of A.S.’s medical records for examination by outside experts. The state objected, but a judge ordered their release.
A year later, on April 19, 2024, Tull filed a report by Dr. Sara Jennings, a forensic nurse in Virginia and the education director of the International Association of Forensic Nurses. Jennings said in her report that she had reviewed A.S.’s medical records and the testimony of Greenfarb and Esposito. Based on her review, Jennings said A.S. had not been sexually abused; instead, she was suffering from urethral prolapse, an uncommon—but benign—condition where the inner lining of the urethra protrudes through the urethral opening, creating a donut-shaped mass of swollen tissue. It is more common in pre-pubescent Black girls than in the general population and can be brought about by abdominal pressure or straining from coughing, vomiting, or constipation.
On April 29, 2024, Tull supplemented his petition for post-conviction relief. He said McFadden had been ineffective because he failed to properly investigate the state’s forensic evidence. He also said that the state’s presentation of this incorrect evidence violated his constitutional rights to a fair trial.
In June 2024, Fakhri asked the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) of the Wicomico County State’s Attorney to review Tull’s conviction.
As part of the review, the PIU examined A.S.’s medical records, re-interviewed the witnesses in the case, and asked outside experts to review the medical evidence. On November 8, 2024, the state agreed that Tull’s conviction should be vacated and his charges dismissed.
In a memorandum accompanying its filings, the state said that its two experts, both pediatricians who were board-certified in treating and detecting child abuse, agreed that A.S. suffered from urethral prolapse that was incorrectly diagnosed as genital trauma.
In addition, A.S.’s medical records showed a history of visits to the emergency room or her pediatrician for coughing or vomiting. Prior to June 18, 2018, she was seen six times for these symptoms. In the six months after June 18, she was treated for these complaints three times.
“The child was suffering from an uncommon, and frequently misdiagnosed, medical condition known as urethral prolapse, brought on by constipation and vomiting, which was misdiagnosed as traumatic physical injury resulting from sexual abuse,” the filing said. “Mr. Tull is actually innocent, and there exists no credible evidence to support the contention that he committed the offenses for which he was convicted.”
On November 14, 2024, Judge Matthew Macierello granted the motion to vacate. The state then dismissed the charges.
In its motion, prosecutors said they had met with L.S. and her family to explain their findings that there was no longer any basis to believe A.S. had been sexually assaulted. It also said, “The State is committed to working to remedy the harm it has inflicted both on Mr. Tull, who has spent the last six years incarcerated for a crime that did not happen, as well as on the family of this child, who have spent the last six years believing that their child was the victim of a brutal sexual assault.”
– Ken Otterbourg
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