Martine was one year old when she died in 2006. The grandmother was sentenced for grievous bodily harm and has served her sentence of four years in prison, but the case has now been reopened.
She has always denied culpability, and new experts now shed new light on what may have happened.
– I believe that Martine may have been exposed to a trauma, suffered a skull fracture with narrow fracture lines in the skull and bleeding, says John-Bjarne Hansen.
He is a professor at the University of Tromsø and a blood expert. He believes the injuries to Martine may have occurred up to 48 hours before Martine went into a coma at her grandmother's home.
Before or after?
The central question is whether Martine suffered the injuries before or after she was delivered to her grandmother on September 4th 20 years ago.
The retrial commission decided that the case had to be re-examined after medical experts provided new assessments.
The public prosecutor has retained the charges from 2023.
John-Bjarne Hansen believes the injury may have led to a lack of oxygen and blood supply, which in turn led to a swelling in the brain that later caused her death.
Martine had extensive skull fractures and a large blood accumulation in her neck.
The child did not necessarily show pain
On September 4th 2006, Martine became ill when she was delivered to her grandmother. She was transported to Ringerike hospital with extensive skull injuries, fractures, and bruises. Four days later, she died at Rikshospitalet.
Martine's parents have always denied that they did anything to Martine.
Neurosurgeon Tomm Brostrup Müller at St. Olavs hospital has extensive experience with head injuries.
He believes such a fracture in Martine's head does not necessarily lead the child to show pain.
– Most express pain and discomfort. But there are many examples of children with a fracture that looks dramatic, yet the child's behavior has changed minimally, Müller explains.
He believes the blood accumulation Martine had in her scalp could have taken at least twelve hours to develop.
– A dramatic and tragic outcome does not necessarily require a dramatic course, said Müller.
Müller concluded that complications from a complex fracture in the occipital bone could have led to blood accumulation and bleeding disturbances.
He believes the fracture in the head may have resulted from a fall from a height.
– I have never seen such an image of an injury.
The two experts who testified earlier in the week have a different view of Martine's injuries.
The pediatrician and clinic director at Sykehuset Telemark, Solveig Marianne Nordhov, believes that Martine must have had severe pain and expressed it, if the injuries occurred long before she became ill and fell into a coma.
She also believes that the girl must have had very poor vision with such large injuries and blood in the head, and that it was not necessarily easy for the caregivers around Martine to perceive it.
– I have never seen such an image of such a small child before, she said.
She believes the injuries occurred shortly before Martine became ill and fell into a coma, and that the injuries may indicate serious mistreatment.
– Do you think the injury occurred before Martine came to her grandmother? Nordhov was asked in court.
– It is difficult to say.
Fallen from a garden staircase
Martine had fallen from a low step on a garden staircase in the days before, and she also knocked against a flowerpot.
The Danish forensic expert Jytte Banner believes that the injuries indicate that the girl was exposed to blunt force or blows to the head.
Banner was asked whether she had considered the information that Martine had fallen from a garden staircase and that she had also hit a flowerpot.
– The injuries are too extensive to be caused by a fall, she said.
The defense attorney for the accused woman, Thomas Randby, believes that the grandmother may have committed a murder. He has worked on the case for almost 20 years.
– In our opinion, the evidence now not only creates reasonable doubt but also makes it clear that the child was already injured before she came to her grandmother, he said.