Werner Spitz

Werner Spitz was a defense witness in Marsha Colbey’s capital-murder trial whose testimony directly challenged the medical conclusion at the center of the prosecution’s case: that Colbey’s baby had been born alive and then drowned. His importance in the account comes from the way he turned a source of authority cited in the State’s case against that case’s central claim.

Identity and Role

Spitz is identified as the author of a medical treatise Kathleen Enstice had relied on during her forensic-pathology training. At trial, Enstice testified that the baby, Timothy, had been born alive and died by drowning, describing her live-birth conclusion as a diagnosis of exclusion: she had found no evidence the baby was stillborn and had no other explanation for the death.

Testimony in the Colbey Trial

Spitz testified for the defense and rejected the conclusion Enstice drew from that absence of evidence. In the circumstances of Colbey’s case, he said he would not declare that the baby had been born alive, let alone that a homicide had taken place. His testimony therefore challenged not only the diagnosis but the leap from uncertainty about the death to a criminal accusation.

The State’s own expert, obstetrician and gynecologist Dennis McNally, had also testified that Colbey’s pregnancy carried a high risk of unexplained fetal death because of her age and lack of prenatal care. Spitz’s testimony added a pointed contradiction: even the author of the treatise Enstice had relied on would not support her conclusion of live birth or homicide under these circumstances.

Narrative Significance

Spitz’s testimony is presented as part of the defense’s effort to expose the unreliability of the scientific basis for the charge. Its force lies in the contrast between the authority invoked by the prosecution’s witness and the conclusion that authority’s author reached when he considered the case. The account does not state the trial’s ultimate outcome, but it makes clear that Spitz disputed the premise on which the alleged drowning and homicide depended.