In late August, Topanga resident and community volunteer, Hannah Rappaport, winged her way to Florida on a mission of mercy. This mother of a 17-year-old son and 25-year-old daughter is a holistic advocate, spiritualist, and humanist, whose lifestyle represents a most unlikely combination of occupational and personal activities. She is a distributor of regenerative herbal products, a member of the board of the Topanga Chamber of Commerce, and an ordained Gnostic priest.
Her thoughts on this cross-country flight to Orlando were focused on the predicament of Alan Yurko, an inmate in northern Florida’s Century Prison, serving the sixth year of a life sentence for the murder of his two-month-old son. Yurko’s tale reads like a sinister horror story, a nightmare so implausible that only a hard look at the facts might cause one to believe it at all.
Yurko tells his story, which is fervently supported by his wife Francine, of baby Alan’s birth in September of 1997, five weeks premature. Labor was induced because the expectant mother had been ill with maternal gestational diabetes and group B streptococcal infection, believed in itself to pose a high risk of infant death. The baby suffered from pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome, and hyper-bilirubinemia, but nevertheless, at eight weeks of age, was given a routine batch of vaccines. The next day, the child developed a fever, began to fuss, and even though the doctor indicated the symptoms would disappear, ten days later developed a high-pitched scream. A couple of days after that he stopped breathing. Yurko, who was with the infant at the time, rushed him to the hospital where he was resuscitated and then flown to a better-equipped facility. Alan and Francine were told that the baby had massive cerebral hemorrhaging and was going to die. As the last adult alone with baby Alan, Yurko was arrested and charged with child abuse, an accusation which he vehemently denied and which Francine felt to be impossible. While Alan sat in jail under maximum security, Francine, brokenhearted, finally agreed to suspend her baby’s life support, donated the infant’s organs, and lovingly kissed her offspring goodbye. Yurko was not permitted to attend the memorial service.
The horror continued. According to Francine, she was told she would never again see their four-year old daughter and that she would be charged with first-degree murder unless she agreed to secretly tape Alan in prison and testify against him. When she refused, her daughter was taken from her and placed in protective custody, ostensibly to shield her from Alan, who himself sat in custody. Francine was then arrested, held for three weeks without charge and while in a foster care setting, her daughter was molested. Francine was finally released and her seriously traumatized daughter sent home.
For a year-and-a-half before his trial Yurko languished in jail, in isolation, while inmates threw feces and urine at him through the bars and called him “baby killer.” The conditions were deplorable—a thin mattress on a platform, one tiny light bulb that was always on, no activity, food brought to his cell, taken to a shower every three days in shackles. Francine could speak to him, loudly, through a vent in the wall, but was not permitted to see him. And he had not seen his daughter at all during this period of his incarceration.
With no funds for a lawyer, Yurko was represented by public defenders who were no match for the prosecution and the state’s witnesses. The defendant, in addition to his wife, had only one other witness, a highly qualified expert who testified that baby Alan died of natural causes and not of child abuse. Yurko was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole plus ten years.
As the plane continued on to Florida’s Orange County, Hannah Rappaport recalled the first time she heard about the predicament of Alan Yurko. In April 2002, she learned about his situation from an e-mail account that was forwarded to her and she immediately identified with and understood the causes of his plight. After all, Rappaport’s own spiritual path was the basis for her children being born at home and not vaccinated. She e-mailed Yurko, offering her spiritual support and expressed how fortunate her own family had been “to have diverted our lives from the hell that you are now doing battle with.” She received a handwritten answer -- Yurko had no access to a computer -- and thus began a powerful friendship, carried on through correspondence. Their letters were spiritual in nature, and Rappaport knew that she was partaking in a spiritual dialogue. She was intrigued by the quality of Yurko’s writings, his intelligence and “personhood,” and that he was not acting the victim, but dealing with his predicament from strength. He was raised as a Catholic, and because of her Gnostic experience “we could use the Catholic symbolism, speaking in symbols and I could give him support from a visionary point of view.”
After his sentence, Yurko spent the next several years working on overturning his case, sparking an international movement to “Free Alan Yurko,” which includes ordinary citizens, doctors, legal experts, and anti-vaccine advocacy groups. He began to receive some funds to aid his cause, and was even able to set up a website, managed by a volunteer. His wife was managing the effort from the outside and was doing interviews on talk shows and attracting additional allies. Yurko spent 12 to 14 hours a day researching and reviewing medical texts, reading newsletters and journals, and writing specialists and supporters. He has written scores of articles, which appear on his Free Yurko website, and some 60 of these have been published, including in medical journals. And most notably, he has become an expert in vaccines, forensic pathology, pediatric head injury, iatrogeny (doctor’s errors) and especially Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), which formed the basis for his murder conviction.
SBS is a term used to describe the signs and symptoms that result from violent shaking or shaking and impacting of the head of an infant or small child. However, there are a growing number of medical doctors and scientists that have identified more than a score of diseases, including some caused by vaccines, which mimic the symptoms of SBS. Yurko supporters claim that doctors rarely examine a child’s medical history for a possible underlying pathology for any of these, which, if discovered, would exonerate the parents or caregiver of misconduct.
Eventually, the hard work and persistence paid off, and Yurko was granted an evidentiary hearing before a judge who was influenced primarily by a clearly flawed autopsy report. An investigation, spearheaded by Francine, resulted in a ruling by the Florida State Medical Examiner’s Commission that the county medical examiner had committed eight mistakes in baby Alan’s autopsy. They subsequently ruled unanimously to suspend the examiner until his imminent retirement. The judge also took into account complaints against physicians who administered contraindicated medications—which Yurko and supporters believed to be the real cause of the infant’s demise. The Yurko’s research was also of import, showing that some of vaccines used on their child were from “hot lots”—defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “a batch of vaccines that has 10 or more reports, or two seizures, or two deaths.” The hearing would determine if a new trial would be granted.
Some 45 of Yurko’s closest supporters, like Topanga’s Hannah Rappaport, made the trip to the Florida hearing, many from overseas as well as the U.S. The courtroom was filled with cameras and reporters. Rappaport recalled how confident she had been that Yurko would prevail in his request for this hearing and that he would eventually be released. She had been writing to him for two and a half years while he was building his new case. There was a confidence between them, a trust, and implicit confidentiality. The relationship had taken on aspects that were akin to confessional. She became one of the people he could open up to and she supported him when he weakened. Over the years he had used the knowledge he gained to assist scores of other families, who found themselves in similar predicaments, and he believed that it was when he began helping these people, that he started receiving help. Rappaport saw these events as a spiritual odyssey. And because Alan was “in the trenches” while preparing for his hearing, she provided needed sustenance: “Here’s the energy. Here’s what’s happening now. Don’t falter.”
The hearing took five days. A host of expert witnesses took the stand in Yurko’s defense, including environmental medical specialists, doctors, the retired chief public defender, and the current county medical examiner, who testified that baby Alan’s autopsy had been so botched as to be unusable. The prosecution had only three experts; a doctor, a vaccine company employee, and the pediatrician who attended the infant in the hospital. The courtroom was filled with Yurko supporters, many wearing “Free Yurko” badges. Rappaport connected with two other supporters and together they visualized Yurko out of jail and attending a big party. Of course they knew that procedurally he would not be set free yet; that this hearing was being held to determine if a new trial would be approved. Even Yurko had commented, “I’m going to get out but not today, not this week.”
Rappaport sat behind the prosecutor’s table, where she could look across and observe Yurko. He sat, in prison garb, in chains, but with one hand free, which allowed him to write and manipulate the myriad books and documents he had before him. Although Yurko had not been permitted to lead his own case, it was apparent that he was directing the actions of the attorney representing him. During the hearing, Rappaport prayed that “wisdom would prevail in the courtroom.”
The hearing played out in a most dramatic and surprising ending, truly befitting the “spiritual odyssey,” with which Rappaport has characterized her involvement in the Yurko affair. Returning from lunch on the final day, the judge cleared the courtroom of all spectators, indicating that some issues needed to be discussed with the Yurko family in closed hearing. Tensions built while the supporters and press waited outside the courtroom. Finally allowed to return, they listen to judge’s decision. Yes, Yurko would be granted a new trial mainly due to the cross-contaminated autopsy. A collective silent cheer could be heard from supporters in the courtroom, but his honor was not yet finished. The judge continued his pronouncements and everyone then learned what had occurred behind closed doors. Yurko was offered a deal to plead no contest to manslaughter, be sentenced to time served, and freed. One source reports that based on an examination of the evidence, the prosecutors decided not to move ahead with another trial. Yurko’s account differs, and he claims that the prosecutors said they would appeal the judge’s verdict and keep the matter tied up for two years if he did not accept the plea.
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A free man after nearly seven years, Alan Yurko, leaving jail. |
There were mixed emotions about the verdict. Some anti-vaccine advocates felt let down, because the hearing did not support their position concerning the problems connected with vaccines. Yurko’s decision to accept the plea was rooted in his lawyer’s definition of manslaughter: “culpable negligence, not murder.” Yes, Yurko reasons, he did contribute to the negligence in his son’s death by allowing baby Alan to receive a series of vaccinations when he was sick and not having done more research himself, instead of relying on the expertise of the doctors.
And then, to add another layer of surprise to a story that appeared to be written with the proverbial Hollywood happy ending, the judge notified the assemblage that his court had recently been closed down due to hurricane Charley, all of his cases were backed up and he had another major trial on his immediate calendar. Normally, he said, he would adjourn and deliver the Yurko judgment in writing sometime in the future, but instead he would pronounce the decision verbally then and there. The result of his action meant that Yurko would be released on that day!
Back home in Topanga, Hannah Rappaport discusses the significance of this experience for herself, and contemplates her future actions. The Yurko phenomenon has given a practical focus and motivation to her spiritual beliefs. “I came back feeling really passionate about educating pregnant women and new mothers and fathers abut the dangers of vaccines. I’ve become shockingly aware of the legal medical systems and how in many ways they do not serve people. And that we can have blinders on and not see it.”
Although claiming she does not have a political bent, she has become deeply aware of “some real grounded political issues about the medical and legal arenas.” Rappaport wants to educate people regarding the “huge mythology about vaccines that we are just going along with.” Rather than make decisions for others, as the medical profession does, her goal is to have people be aware that there is a problem and to take action for themselves. She believes there are real dangers associated with the use of vaccines and cites the 40 percent rise in autism in the last five years, which has been attributed to these inoculations. And she is intensely concerned that the public simply does not know that there are real dangers connected with vaccines.
Rappaport characterizes herself as an educator rather than an activist and she has already identified opportunities in the Canyon in which to bring the vaccine issue to people’s attention. She believes that “if you have a real life dedicated to making a change in the world, you do what comes to you to be done.” Her passion and dedication to this cause guarantees that much will come to her and Hannah Rappaport will get it done.
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