Corey Micciolo, 6, had no infection, doctor says at Chris Gregor's trial in son's murder

TOMS RIVER -  An expert witness testified Wednesday at Christopher Gregor's trial in the murder of his 6-year-old son that the child had no infections and did not die as a result of sepsis, as the defense maintains.

Dr. Anat Feingold, a specialist in pediatric infectious disease at Cooper University Medical Center in Camden, was called as the last witness before the state rested its case. She told an Ocean County jury that three physicians who examined Corey Micciolo within a day of his death found him to be a normal, healthy child, except for bruising on his body.

The prosecution argues that Corey died as a result of blunt-force trauma a little more than an hour after Gregor, 31, of Barnegat, took him to the emergency room at Southern Ocean Medical Center in Stafford Township on April 2, 2021.

Feingold said she was hired by the prosecution to review medical records and other evidence related to Corey's death and render an opinion as to whether he died as a result of an infection.

"My conclusion was, there was no evidence that Corey had an infectious disease at any point, and certainly that that was not the cause of his death,'' Feingold testified.

Feingold's testimony contradicts the position the defense has taken, that Corey died as a result of sepsis caused by an infection such as pneumonia.

Dr. Thomas Andrew, former chief medical examiner for New Hampshire, testified earlier in the trial that Corey died as a result of blunt-force injuries to his chest  and lacerations to his heart and liver.

On Friday, renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, former medical examiner for New York City and host of the HBO series "Autopsy,'' is expected to take the stand for the defense to rebut the prosecution's expert witnesses and expound on the position that infection was behind Corey's death.

Feingold discounted that position a number of times during her testimony.

From everything she reviewed in the case and her knowledge derived from 40 years of caring for pediatric patients, she said "there was no evidence in anything that I reviewed that there was any infection in this boy.''

Among the information Feingold said she reviewed were medical records from Ivy Pediatrics, where Corey's mother, concerned the boy was being abused by his father, took him on April 1, 2021, about 24 hours before his death, and from subsequent visits later that day to Community Medical Center in Toms River and Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune.

"This child was seen on three separate occasions by three physicians, and nobody felt that he had any sign of infection and that there was anything wrong other than the bruising,'' Feingold testified.

During the three visits, the child's breathing, the oxygen levels in his blood and his vital signs were all normal, she said.

The doctors in their reports described hearing no wheezing associated with pneumonia or anything abnormal while listening to the boy's chest, she said. In addition, blood work done at Jersey Shore showed his white blood cell count was normal, another sign of absence of infection, she said.

Blood work done on Corey at Southern Ocean Medical Center the following day, however, showed the child's white blood cell count and glucose level were both "markedly elevated,'' Feingold said. She opined that was a result of a surge in epinephrine, or adrenaline, in response to stress.

The surge in epinephrine "can happen with infection,'' Feingold said, but she added "blunt trauma is a well-described cause.''

The witness noted a blood culture was done on Corey shortly after he arrived at the emergency room at Southern Ocean Medical Center, less than an hour before his death. Even then, the culture proved negative for any bacteria, she said.

"That rules out staph aureus sepsis,'' she said.

"That's one of the more specific pieces of evidence that this is not an infectious death,'' Feingold said. "Forty-five to 50 minutes before he died, he had no bacteria in his bloodstream. If this was a staph aureus sepsis death, it should have been teeming with it.''

Galluci, cross-examining Feingold, went after her lack of significant experience performing autopsies, asking the witness, "How many dead bodies have you worked with?''

Feingold responded, "none,'' and said, "the last time I did an autopsy was when I was in medical school. It was in 1979.''

Still being cross-examined by Gallucci, Feingold testified that the autopsy report and death certificate for Corey, both prepared for the state by Dr. Dante Ragasa of the medical examiner's office, were changed almost a year after the boy's death, amending the manner of death from undetermined to homicide.

The state has not called Ragasa to testify.

Gregor is on trial before Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan. In addition to murder, he is charged with endangering the welfare of a child related to an incident March 20, 2021 in which he is seen on a surveillance video at the gym in his apartment complex increasing the speed on a treadmill on which Corey was running, causing the child to repeatedly fall off the machine face-first.

The trial will not be in session Thursday, but is expected to resume Friday with Baden on the witness stand in the morning.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Treadmill abuse trial: Day 9 in Christopher Gregor murder case