Matthew Ogden, who was arrested in 2015 in connection with the death of his month-old daughter, pleaded guilty to reckless child abuse resulting in death. That is a felony with a plea deal stipulation of 30 to 40 years in prison. Ogden faced life in prison on the original first-degree murder charge.
The defense said during sentencing that Sarah’s skull fracture came about when Ogden was carrying her out of the bedroom and banged her head on a doorjamb.
He said at different points that she may have hit her head in her bouncy chair, a dog had knocked her off the couch, she hit it on the windowsill, a cousin may have hurt her or Ogden may have hit her with his own head while asleep.
The affidavit said he finally settled on a story that, two days before the death, he was excited by seeing Wyatt showering and jumped onto the bed, bouncing Sarah into the air and causing her to hit her head on a windowsill.
Matthew Ogden. ALS. Pmk: n.d. SEALED. Contents unknown. Pristine.
Matthew Ogden was arrested in the death of his daughter, Sarah Ogden, after his wife, Phyllis Wyatt, told investigators that she awoke either late June 19 or early June 20, 2015, to see her husband holding their newborn by the waist, yelling and shaking her violently, according to police. He took her into the next room, she said, where she continued to hear shouting, pounding and thumping. Wyatt told authorities she stayed in bed while this was happening. She said that when Ogden came back into the bedroom with the baby, Sarah wasn’t crying anymore, and Wyatt rolled over and went back to sleep.
The infant could not be revived when emergency personnel arrived at the couple's Parachute apartment the next morning. The causes of death were later determined to be a fractured skull, brain hemorrhaging, and a lacerated liver.
Ogden and Wyatt fled Colorado after being questioned by police. Sarah had a twin brother who was not injured in the incident and was separated from the couple, who were arrested in northern Minnesota and returned to Colorado to face charges.
Wyatt pleaded guilty to criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death and received an eight-year prison sentence in February.
Investigators testified in court that the couple moved to Colorado from California because they were afraid of losing custody of their newborns due to their marijuana use.
District Attorney Sherry Caloia described it as a "fair and harsh" deal for Ogden, one that takes into account the infant's death while also acknowledging that Ogden did not intend for that outcome. This plea also has precedent across the state in similar cases where a child died and what caused it is unclear, according to Caloia. Some medical information about Sarah's death is contradictory, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened, she said. "We don't have a real clear understanding of what happened that day ... whether this was some sort of accident, whether it was a reckless act or whether it was done intentionally. And I don't believe we could have proven it.”
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