Sailor faces life for
baby’s deathThe prosecution says Frank J. Osheski
By Gregg K. Kakesako
killed his daughter to 'get back'
at his unfaithful wife
Star-BulletinA 26-year-old Pearl Harbor submariner took out his frustrations over his wife's infidelity by suffocating his 3-month-old daughter as she lay in her crib, a military prosecutor said today.
Petty Officer Frank J. Osheski has already pleaded guilty on Oct. 22 to accidentally murdering his daughter, Amy, on Mother's Day last year.
The government accepted Osheski's guilty plea but is now seeking to convict him on the higher charge of premeditated murder.
Osheski, a machinist with the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, is also charged with endangering the welfare of a minor.
He faces the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The government maintains Osheski killed his daughter by pushing on her back with his hand while she was lying face down on her crib mattress.
In opening statements this morning at Pearl Harbor, Lt. Sarah Gill, prosecuting attorney, said one of the motives for the killing on May 10, 1998, was because Osheski believed that "killing Amy on Mother's Day was the perfect way to get back" at his wife.
Gill said that Amy symbolized to Osheski his wife's infidelity since he didn't believe the infant was his daughter and that he was also burdened with the constant care of the child.
She said Osheski was frustrated "so he pushed her ... little nose and little mouth ... into that filthy crib so she couldn't breathe."
Defense counsel Lt. Richard Harper acknowledged that Osheski's wife was "overbearing, abusive and self-destructive."
Although he knew that Amy wasn't his daughter, Osheski declared a long time ago that "no matter what he knew, he would always be her father," Harper said.
Initially, Osheski reported that the child died of sudden infant death syndrome.
But a subsequent investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Services indicated the possibility that a crime had been committed.
