(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – Trial in the case of a Cass County (IA) woman facing felony charges of Murder in the 1st Degree and Child Endangerment resulting in death, is set to begin Monday in Pottawattamie County. 39-year-old Alison Dorsey, of Anita, is on trial for the death at a Massena day care, of an infant in her care in October 2019. Her trial was moved to Council Bluffs after the jury in Dorsey’s first trial ended in early November 2021, with a deadlocked jury, after which a mistrial was declared.

Her re-trial was originally set for January 2022, but it was continued twice thereafter until May 1, 2023. A ZOOM pre-trial conference in the case was held Thursday, April 27th. Dorsey is accused of shaking a baby to death at her Massena day care in 2019.

The baby boy, who died in October of 2019, was one of 11 children Alison Dorsey was caring for in a Massena day care on the morning the child stopped breathing. In her first trial, Dorsey testified 11-week-old Luka Hodges was gasping for air about three hours after the baby’s father dropped the child off, so she called the boy’s father. When the father walked into the home, the baby, which was being held by Dorsey, went limp. She immediately handed him to the father. The baby’s father and an off duty sheriff’s deputy who was nearby performed CPR and the infant was taken to a hospital in Atlantic, then transferred to a hospital in Omaha, where the boy died.

Shaken Baby Syndrome was initially identified as the cause of death, but the Iowa Medical Examiner’s report was inconclusive.