Stepfather, 19, Is Accused Of Baby's Murder

King County prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old Lake City man with second-degree murder in the death of his 15-month-old stepdaughter.

Senior deputy prosecutor Rebecca Roe wrote in court papers yesterday that Shad Lee Laidlaw admitted he violently shook his stepdaughter, Katrina Roberts, when he became "frustrated with her behavior" last Thursday night.

Seattle Fire Department medics called to the family's apartment in the 12300 block of 33rd Avenue Northeast that night found Katrina on a couch, not breathing and without a pulse. She had suffered multiple skull fractures.

At the time Laidlaw, who has been married to the child's mother for three months, told medics the child had fallen off a changing table while he was caring for her.

Katrina died the next day at Harborview Medical Center after life-support systems were turned off. Laidlaw was arrested that evening.

Laidlaw continued to say a fall caused the child's fatal injuries after admitting that he shook her. But, Roe wrote, the major injury, internal bleeding on the brain, was consistent with violent shaking.

The King County Medical Examiner's Office, which classified the death as a homicide, also found other injuries that appeared to be caused by blunt impact to the head.

Laidlaw is being held at the King County Jail on $250,000 bail. He is to be arraigned tomorrow.