Iraq veteran charged with infant's death was self-medicating

Friend: Accused man took path of self-destruction
The Daily Item
By Cyrus Moulton
July 15, 2013

Anthony Gideika at his arraignment
Wednesday in Lynn.
(Item Photo / Owen O'Rourke)

LYNN — A longtime friend said he could not believe Anthony Gideika, the city man charged Wednesday with beating an infant to death, would purposely have killed the child.

But the friend also said Gideika should not have been caring for the deceased and the child’s twin brother, describing how Gideika abused drugs to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after returning from serving in Iraq.

“I don’t think he purposely, in my heart, I don’t think he shook [the baby] or slammed it; but I could definitely see him dropping it,” Chris Webb, Gideika’s friend since high school said. “He was already a self-destructive kind of person the last couple of years from the Army, and now he has to live with having the baby die, which is honestly why I believe he didn’t do anything on purpose to his baby.”

Prosecutors said Gideika had recently learned he was not the twins’ father and was “self-medicating” with Klonopin to handle post-traumatic stress disorder from his service in Iraq.

Gideika pleaded not guilty and maintained that he had dropped the baby several times and any injuries were involuntary.
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