An Horry County grand jury indicted a woman and her boyfriend on charges of homicide by child abuse in the 2008 death of a toddler.
The grand jury returned a true bill indictment for homicide by child abuse for Julia Gorman, 39, and her boyfriend Robert Palmer, 31, both from Galivants Ferry. Palmer was also indicted on a charge of aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse.
Horry County Police said Gorman called for an ambulance to take her 17-month-old grandson to a hospital on July 14, 2008. It was discovered the child suffered from severe skull fractures, and after being flown to MUSC in Charleston, the child died on July 16.
The child's biological parents had signed over guardianship to Gorman after an unrelated illness prevented the child from going back to Arizona with his mother.
The child's father, Richard Grimes, who was stationed on a marine base in Virginia, called Horry County dispatchers that July 14 night and said something wasn't right with his mother-in-law's story.
"I just find something fishy about this, and I want her (Gorman) away from my son," Grimes told the dispatchers.
Police didn't immediately respond after Grimes' call, but they eventually charged Gorman and Palmer.
Gorman also faces an additional charge of unlawful conduct toward a child, a charge for which she was indicted in February 2010.
According to the homicide indictments, Palmer did "inflict fatal injuries that subsequently caused the death" of the child, and Gorman "knowingly aid(ed) and abet(ted) another to commit child abuse and neglect" upon the child.
Carla Grabert-Lowenstein of Myrtle Beach is representing Palmer and Gorman, according to the indictments.
