In the summer of 2024, Dr. Bruce Levy, the former chief medical examiner of Tennessee, got a call asking whether he remembered the death of a baby boy, Alex Maze.
The name, from nearly 25 years earlier, faintly stirred Levy’s memory. Levy had conducted an autopsy on the 19-month-old boy, and he had concluded that Alex’s death was a homicide, the result of being violently shaken.
Levy’s testimony was critical in helping Nashville prosecutors secure a murder conviction against Alex’s father, Russell Maze, who was sentenced to life in prison.
Russell Maze with his son, Alex, who was placed in neonatal intensive care after his birth in 1999.Courtesy Kaye Maze
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For decades, Maze has denied abusing his son. He had been home alone with Alex in May 1999 when the baby suddenly stopped breathing. At the hospital, a pediatrician who specialized in identifying child abuse found what she said were clear signs that Alex was the victim of shaken baby syndrome. Levy later agreed.
Now, decades later, Levy was being asked to re-examine Alex’s death amid an initiative in Nashville investigating potential wrongful convictions. Intrigued, Levy said yes.
This month, in his first public comments on the case, Levy told NBC News that after having received information he never knew about Alex’s medical history, he came to a startling conclusion: He was wrong about Alex’s being abused, and he believes Maze is innocent.
“I have to remember that I’m not perfect and I can make mistakes,” Levy said. “And the best that I can do, is when I come to realize that, is to admit that I have made a mistake and try to do what I can to rectify that.”
Thousands of caregivers have been arrested based on the long-held medical belief that three symptoms — brain swelling, bleeding in the brain and bleeding behind the eyes — indicate that a young child was deliberately shaken.
But in the decades since Maze was convicted, there has been a growing acknowledgment among experts that the symptoms once believed to be proof of shaken baby syndrome, also known as abusive head trauma, can appear in children for other reasons, like complex medical conditions. And with that shift in understanding, a movement has been growing to re-examine — and potentially reverse — some shaken baby convictions, particularly when the evidence of abuse now appears questionable.
In October, NBC News’ “The Last Appeal” podcast investigated the high-profile case of Robert Roberson, a condemned man on Texas’ death row who was convicted of fatally shaking and abusing his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, in 2002. On Oct. 9, Texas’ highest criminal court halted the latest attempt to execute Roberson, sending his case back to a lower court for another review. “We are confident that an objective review of the science and medical evidence will show there was no crime,” Gretchen Sween, Roberson’s attorney, said at the time.
Maze is still waiting for a similar breakthrough.
After he reviewed Maze’s case, Levy wrote an affidavit in September 2024 recanting his homicide finding and determining that Alex had succumbed to a “natural” death. He joined an ongoing effort by the Nashville district attorney’s office, which has been working to free Maze.
