Judge rules Carrody Buchhorn was wrongfully convicted in Eudora daycare death
Douglas County Judge James McCabria said Carrody Buchhorn was wrongfully convicted and ordered Kansas to pay her $368,000 plus attorney fees after a 10-year fight.
A Douglas County judge on Monday declared Carrody Buchhorn wrongfully convicted in the 2016 Eudora daycare death of 9-month-old Oliver Ortiz, issued her a certificate of innocence and ordered Kansas to pay her a $368,000 lump sum plus attorney fees.
The case centered on Ortiz’s death at Sunshine Kids Group Daycare Home in Eudora and on years of uncertainty over whether the infant died from abuse or from natural causes. Buchhorn was convicted by a jury in 2018 of second-degree murder, but the Kansas Court of Appeals reversed that conviction in 2021. The Kansas Supreme Court later left that reversal in place in 2022 because the justices were evenly divided, and Douglas County prosecutors dismissed the criminal case in December 2022 after failing to secure a new expert opinion in time.
A forensic pathologist concluded on Jan. 3, 2023, that Ortiz died from natural disease and pathophysiologic processes unrelated to child abuse. In March 2024, prosecutors reopened the 2016 death investigation, citing new evidence and declining to describe it. Buchhorn’s innocence trial required her to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she had been convicted of a felony, that the conviction had been reversed or vacated and the charges dismissed, and that she did not commit the crime or contribute to the conviction through perjury, fabricated evidence or similar conduct.
Kansas wrongful-conviction law sets compensation at $65,000 for each year of imprisonment, with additional payment possible for some periods of supervision, and the clerk sends the certificate and judgment to the attorney general for payment. Buchhorn spent more than 5 1/2 years in custody or on house arrest before the case was dismissed. Her attorneys alleged that prosecutors and the coroner hid or fabricated evidence in the case.
Oliver Ortiz’s parents filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against daycare operators Gina Brunton and Morgan Eric Brunton, and the court later approved a settlement.
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