Couple's trial puts religion, law at odds

Couple's trial puts religion, law at odds

Parents who favor faith over medicine charged in death of newborn daughter.

By Paul Bird

paul.bird@indystar.com


Indiana law and a couple's faith in the power of God and Indiana law will clash head-on this week in a Johnson County courtroom.

Dewayne Schmidt, 36, and his wife, Maleta Schmidt, 30, are facing a single charge each of reckless homicide in the August 2003 death of their daughter, Rhianna Rose Schmidt. She died from sepsis two days after birth."

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The Schmidts told investigators they relied on God to heal their daughter, said Johnson County Sheriff's Detective Lt. Mike McElwain.

The Schmidts are members of the General Assembly and Church of the First Born, in Morgantown. Some church members eschew medical treatment in favor of faith in God's power to heal.

Church leaders could not be reached for comment, but in the past have said the church would follow its usual procedure in dealing with legal intervention.

"We'll just pray and leave it in the hands of God," elder Thomas Nation said last year.

Rhianna was not the first child within the church to die. In 1999, 12-year-old Bradley Glenn Hamm died after his pneumonia went untreated. In 1998, 6-day-old Aspen Daniel succumbed, according to authorities, to dehydration and underdevelopment.

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