Editor’s note: A prior version of this story was inadvertently missing several paragraphs, which have been restored in full.

In 2016, Uniontown police charged the parents of a little girl with starving her to death.

The most powerful piece of evidence against Lydia Wright’s mother and father came from an autopsy report by a renowned Pittsburgh forensic pathologist, the late Dr. Cyril H. Wecht.

Wecht, who died in May 2024, was Allegheny County coroner for two decades and rose to national fame by investigating such cases as the John F. Kennedy assassination and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. He determined Lydia weighed only 10 pounds when she died at 23 months old — far less than what was normal for her age. He ruled her death a homicide from malnutrition and dehydration.

Faced with Wecht’s overpowering reputation and credibility, Lydia’s mother turned on her father. Andrea Dusha testified against Michael Wright in exchange for prosecutors dropping the death penalty against her.

Dusha, 35, pleaded no contest in 2018, and the following year a jury convicted Wright, 41. Both went to prison for third-degree murder.

But that was hardly the end of the story.

In 2022, Wecht emailed a bombshell to Wright’s lawyer: The acclaimed pathologist said he’d made a mistake.

Lydia clearly weighed “far more” than 10 pounds, Wecht wrote, undercutting the very basis of his homicide ruling.

Based on that stunning admission, Wright was granted a new trial. In September 2023, he was released from prison and ultimately pleaded guilty to lesser charges. He is no longer a convicted murderer.

Dusha, though, still is.

Fayette County Common Pleas Court records In this email, Dr. Cyril Wecht recants his initial autopsy finding that toddler Lydia Wright was only 10 pounds when she died.  

On Tuesday, she and her attorneys will appear in Fayette County Common Pleas Court in a bid to change that. They’re fighting for a new trial, arguing the same circumstances that led to Wright’s freedom should also apply to Dusha.

”Because (Lydia) did not die of homicide, as a matter of fundamental fairness, Ms. Dusha’s homicide conviction cannot stand,” her attorneys wrote.

What’s more, they argue, since the state Attorney General’s Office, which handled Wright’s second trial, dropped the homicide charge against him, the Fayette County District Attorney’s Office should do the same with Dusha.

Instead, Fayette County District Attorney Michael Aubele is fighting to keep her in prison. Aubele said it doesn’t matter what other prosecutors did in Wright’s case.

“She entered a knowing, intelligent and voluntary plea. She cooperated against him. She acknowledged wrongdoing and that a child died,” Aubele told TribLive last week.

Unfortunately for Dusha, Aubele said, “You’re now at the losing end of the deal you made.”

The convoluted case illustrates the pitfalls associated with expert testimony and shows how different prosecutors can approach the same case in radically different ways.

“For some time, a number of courts have warned us about the perceived mystic infallibility of expert witnesses,” said Bruce Antkowiak, a criminal law professor at Saint Vincent College. “It is very important for the public to realize the great good that science can do for the criminal justice system, but it must also realize its significant limitations.”

A child dies

Lydia was born premature at 33 weeks March 9, 2014. She weighed 3 pounds, 15 ounces and was in the neonatal intensive care unit for two weeks before leaving the hospital.

She lived in a Uniontown rental with her unemployed parents and two brothers. Lydia’s mom and dad had a history of drug problems, and their squalid home lacked running water. Police found toilets filled with feces. A hypodermic needle and open bottles of pills were in the bathroom.

For Lydia’s first four months, her parents took her to the pediatrician regularly. She gained weight appropriately and was 9.9 pounds at her four-month visit. At a year, she weighed 16 pounds and was 26 inches tall.

On the morning of Feb. 24, 2016, according to the criminal complaint against Lydia’s parents, she became unresponsive.

“Dusha stated that the child was drinking a mixture of water, Gatorade and Pedialyte from a sippy cup when the child’s eyes rolled in the back of her head, foam began to emit from the child’s nose and mouth, and the child quit breathing,” police wrote.

Dusha rushed her daughter to Uniontown Hospital, where Lydia was pronounced dead at 11:34 a.m.

The next day, Wecht performed an autopsy. He ruled Lydia’s cause of death to be malnutrition and dehydration and found she weighed 4,550 grams, or 10.03 pounds.

On March 17, 2016, police charged Dusha and Wright with homicide.

No other option

By August 2018, facing the possibility of the death penalty if convicted, Dusha agreed to forgo a trial. She would enter a plea of no contest — neither admitting nor denying guilt — and testify against Wright. In exchange, prosecutors would no longer seek capital punishment.

Although both parents denied their daughter starved to death, Dusha understood that local media “portrayed her as a cold-blooded monster who murdered her daughter – and was likewise aware that the local jury pool was seeing the same coverage,” her attorneys wrote in her appeal.

With no good options to challenge the findings of the internationally renowned Wecht, the attorneys wrote, Dusha agreed to plead.

Under the circumstances — the condition of the child, lack of medical care and timing of Lydia’s death — the plea was the right decision, said attorney Wendy Williams, who represented Dusha at the time.

“I was advised by legal scholars that it was a very good plea offer,” Williams said. “It was our job to save the defendant’s life, and that’s what I did.”

Nine months later, Dusha testified against Wright.

A few days before Lydia died, Dusha said, the whole family had a stomach virus. Thinking it wasn’t serious, she said, they didn’t take Lydia to the doctor.

Dusha, who told the jury she was withdrawing from methadone at the time and didn’t feel well, said she checked on Lydia and went to bed around 1:30 a.m. Later that morning, after 10 a.m., Lydia appeared to be just waking up.

“Was holding her in my arms, giving her a bottle, and she was drinking it, and I don’t know, probably about five, 10 minutes I was sitting there with her, feeding her, and she was awake,” Dusha testified. “Seemed kind of lethargic, but it didn’t seem like it was anything that wrong with her at that time that I was holding her.

“All of a sudden she just, her eyes just opened up and just rolled back in her head and her teeth just clamped down on the bottle and she started foaming out of her mouth. I do not understand what happened.”

Wecht testifies

The next day, Wecht took the stand.

Then 88 years old, Wecht told the jury he’d performed 20,000 autopsies. At the time of Lydia’s death, he was under contract to provide services to Fayette County.

Wecht testified Lydia was “thin and malnourished” and showed “tenting” of her skin from being dehydrated.

He also told jurors X-rays taken of Lydia after her death showed dense metaphyseal bands — the wide part of long bones near the growth plate — which, in the absence of another diagnosis, could be consistent with malnutrition.

Wright’s lawyers agreed Wecht’s testimony was the strongest offered at trial — and was likely the reason their client was found guilty.

Prosecutors sought a first-degree murder conviction, but on May 9, 2019, the jury voted for third degree. Wright was ordered to serve 15 to 40 years in prison.

Four days after Wright’s trial ended, Dusha was sentenced to 9½ to 19 years.

Admission, retraction

Wright had never believed Lydia died from malnutrition, and, in 2022, his new attorney, Jeremy Cooper, set out to prove it.

“It was obvious to me as a non-medical expert this child weighed more than 10 pounds,” Cooper said, remembering the autopsy photos. “It was blindingly obvious.”

He sought an expert to counter Wecht’s opinion. Meanwhile, Cooper reached out directly to the pathologist, asking for any remaining tissue slides for testing. On Sept. 15, 2022, Wecht responded by email.

Contradicting his earlier testimony, Wecht wrote there was no way Lydia weighed only 10 pounds. There had to have been an error during the autopsy, he said.

“I have reviewed the photographs related to this case,” Wecht wrote. “From the photographs, it is clear that the decedent’s documented weight is far more than the 10 pounds that was documented in the autopsy report.

“This weight may have been the result of a malfunction with the autopsy scale that was used to weight (sic) the decedent or the interpretation of the measurement.”

Cooper was shocked.

“I didn’t expect him to recant that position,” he said. “That changed the whole outlook of things.”

Five weeks later, Wright filed an amended appeal citing Wecht’s email and asserting that he had newly discovered evidence that would have changed the outcome of the trial.

“Beyond simply the defendant’s mental state, the revelation that (Lydia’s) weight was ‘far more than 10 pounds’ also calls into question the commonwealth’s theory of causation altogether, all of which was predicated on a rapid downturn in (her) weight at the end of her life,” Cooper wrote.

A hearing was scheduled, and Cooper subpoenaed Wecht.

Five days before the hearing, however, Wecht sent Cooper another email.

Wecht was taking back his statement.

“After checking on the accuracy of the scale I used to weigh every body that was autopsied by me on the date that I examined Lydia Wright, as well as the day before and the day after, and after carefully studying all the body photos and anatomic description, I have determined that there is no concrete basis for me to challenge the weight that was recorded for Lydia Wright,” Wecht wrote.

“Accordingly, I must unequivocally rescind the statement that I made in an email to you on Sept. 15, 2022.”

“I do not believe that there is any purpose to be served in having me testify at a hearing scheduled for Monday, Nov. 28. I would be charging $5,000 to be paid in advance if I were to testify.

“It would not be in the best interest of the defendant to have me state what I have set forth in this email.

“Please confirm that I shall not have to drive to Uniontown to testify at this hearing next week.”

Cooper was taken aback by Wecht’s reversal, and asked for a postponement, which was granted.

A problem of scale

Cooper retained another forensic pathologist, Dr. Jennifer Hammers, to review the case.

Hammers knew Wecht’s methods well. She said she had spent more than five years performing autopsies for him as part of work he did for the Westmoreland County Coroner’s Office.

Hammers called Lydia’s weight in the autopsy report “incorrect.” Had the girl weighed only 10 pounds, Hammers wrote, she would have appeared “markedly emaciated,” with “diffusely prominent bones” and “little to no subcutaneous fat.”

“That was not the appearance of Lydia in the autopsy photographs,” she wrote.

Hammers described Lydia’s musculature as normal and her face filled out with fat in her cheeks.

“There is no evidence to support a manner of death as anything other than natural.”

Hammers had performed autopsies at a facility Wecht once used at Carlow University. The autopsy scale there, she said, was the same one he used to weigh Lydia.

Small children, she said, were weighed in the analog organ scale — much like putting produce in a scale at the grocery store — which had a maximum weight of approximately 20 pounds.

“The scale dial revolved one time around for every 1,000 grams, with each revolution needing to be counted as the scale was slowly allowed to drop,” Hammers said. “Care had to be taken to ensure that the bottom of the scale did not accidentally come to rest on any equipment or on the table, which would underestimate the weight. This could easily happen given the proximity of the pan in the scale to the top of the counter.”

Hammers also challenged Wecht’s statement that he double-checked the scale used to weigh other bodies on the day he examined Lydia.

“At this facility there was no scale to weigh bodies,” Hammers wrote. “All adult body weights were estimated.”

Hammers said it was also possible the error in Lydia’s weight occurred in dictation at autopsy or at the time of transcription.

New trial

In August 2023, after hearing Hammers’ testimony, Fayette County Common Pleas Judge Linda R. Cordaro granted Wright a new trial.

The following January, Aubele became the district attorney. He had previously worked for both the public defender’s office and the private firm that represented Wright during his trial.

Aubele recused himself from Wright’s case because of the conflict of interest, and the attorney general’s office stepped in.

The new prosecutors had Hammers review the case.

“At this time, the commonwealth is unable to establish a cause of death and moves to withdraw the homicide,” the attorney general’s office wrote.

The next day, Wright pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of children, a felony, and reckless endangerment. He was ordered to serve 3½ to seven years in prison — the maximum penalty for the felony.

Wright was given credit for time served and was set free, having already served the maximum sentence.

Dusha, who had filed her own appeal upon learning of Wecht’s turnabout, was still in prison.

The DA’s viewpoint

As Dusha’s appeal winds through court, her lawyers have complained that she and Wright were treated differently.

“It’s no secret that the commonwealth originally viewed Mr. Wright as the more culpable party between him and Ms. Dusha,” they wrote. “Yet now the seemingly more culpable of the two stands vindicated of homicide and released from prison …”

Aubele said he never believed Dusha was less culpable.

“She was the main caretaker with the father absent, lazy,” Aubele told TribLive.

Despite Hammers’ findings, Aubele said there was still wrongdoing by Dusha.

What’s more, Aubele said, Dusha could point to no case law that says the commonwealth “ought to speak with one voice.”

“So while the defendant may want the office of attorney general to assume the prosecution of this case, the district attorney, without a conflict of interest, does not have to request same,” the DA said.

Dusha’s lawyers also tried to disqualify Aubele, but that effort fell flat.

In April, Dusha’s lawyers successfully fought to have her granted bail. She was released from custody two days later.

Aubele called Wecht’s original email “shocking.”

“It’s absolutely terrible to think this man who’s been part of tens of thousands of autopsies — from everyday people in Allegheny County to the most high-profile celebrities — could make such a monumental error,” Aubele said.

Experts contacted by TribLive said it’s unusual to have a mistake on such a foundational element as the weight of a child in a case alleging malnutrition.

Antkowiak, the Saint Vincent professor, called Hammers’ possible explanations for Wecht’s mistake “very disturbing.”

Dr. Karl Williams, the former chief medical examiner for Allegheny County, said if a mistake is made in an autopsy or additional evidence comes to light that changes the findings, standard practice is to issue an amended report explaining the reasoning — not to write an email to a lawyer years after the fact.

They also said it’s uncommon for two different prosecuting agencies, both of whom represent the interests of the public, to take opposite positions on such a fundamental issue as whether someone’s death was a homicide.

“I have never heard of anything like this even remotely,” said Antkowiak, who’s a former federal prosecutor.

He called it “deeply problematic” that the DA’s office would want to handle Dusha’s case.

No case law explicitly requires co-defendants to be treated the same way, but there is a question of fairness, said Sam Stretton, a Philadelphia-area lawyer and legal ethics expert. 

Wright’s appeals lawyer, Cooper, has a similar view.

“Just as a matter of gut-level justice, it seems very wrong to me the DA’s office would not follow through with the position the attorney general took with this exculpatory information,” Cooper said. “To my mind, there’s one Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

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