In a stunning reversal, however, the guilty verdict against him was withdrawn in September<\/a>, and Wolfe instead pleaded no contest to third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child, a move that allowed him to be released from prison.<\/p>\n The key to his 2017 conviction was the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former head of the now-shuttered John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children\u2019s Hospital. And that same testimony coming into question under reexamination years later led to Wolfe\u2019s release.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was their lynch pin. Without her \u2014 if you read the court transcripts, it\u2019s in there \u2014 they didn\u2019t have the evidence. She\u2019s the only one. She fingered me. She said, \u2018This day, at this time, Matthew Wolfe was by himself.\u2019 Nobody else,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n Based on an examination of Quinn\u2019s medical records, Esernio-Jenssen testified that the infant\u2019s injuries occurred during the three hours her father was alone with her<\/a>. She claimed that Wolfe had throttled Quinn, shaking her and hitting her head against a hard surface before putting her to sleep.<\/p>\n Matthew Wolfe is comforted at his home by his father Robert Wolfe Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Allentown. In 2017, Wolfe was convicted of killing his infant daughter in part due to the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former medical director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In September, after the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the case and raised questions about Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony, the jury verdict was withdrawn. Wolfe pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was eligible for release from prison. (Amy Shortell\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n Matthew Wolfe becomes emotional while speaking at his home Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Allentown. In 2017, Wolfe was convicted of killing his infant daughter in part due to the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former medical director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In September, after the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the case and raised questions about Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony, the jury verdict was withdrawn. Wolfe pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was eligible for release from prison. (Amy Shortell\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n Matthew Wolfe speaks at his home Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Allentown. In 2017, Wolfe was convicted of killing his infant daughter in part due to the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former medical director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In September, after the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the case and raised questions about Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony, the jury verdict was withdrawn. Wolfe pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was eligible for release from prison. (Amy Shortell\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n Matthew Wolfe speaks at his home Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Allentown. In 2017, Wolfe was convicted of killing his infant daughter in part due to the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former medical director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In September, after the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the case and raised questions about Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony, the jury verdict was withdrawn. Wolfe pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was eligible for release from prison. (Amy Shortell\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 4<\/p>\n Matthew Wolfe is comforted at his home by his father Robert Wolfe Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Allentown. In 2017, Wolfe was convicted of killing his infant daughter in part due to the testimony of Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, a child abuse pediatrician and former medical director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In September, after the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the case and raised questions about Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s testimony, the jury verdict was withdrawn. Wolfe pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was eligible for release from prison. (Amy Shortell\/The Morning Call)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a> Wolfe maintained his innocence from the beginning, and appealed his conviction. But it was Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley who helped persuade the district attorney to take another look at the case.<\/p>\n In 2023, Pinsley authored a report examining what he said were an extraordinary number of child abuse misdiagnoses in the Lehigh Valley \u2014 all tied to Esernio-Jenssen<\/a>.<\/p>\n When he learned of Wolfe\u2019s case, Pinsley found a forensic pathologist through the Center for Integrity in Forensic Science willing to work pro bono and look into Quinn\u2019s medical records and autopsy, as well as police files and other documents relevant to the case.<\/p>\n Eventually, the DA\u2019s office said it determined Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s trial testimony went \u201cfar beyond\u201d what was in a report on Quinn\u2019s death. Other medical experts who investigated the baby\u2019s death said the time the head injuries occurred could not be determined to the level of specificity that Esernio-Jenssen claimed.<\/p>\n The DA offered Wolfe a deal: withdraw his appeal, plead no contest and walk free. A no contest plea means that while he wasn\u2019t admitting guilt, he also wasn\u2019t challenging the charges either, and his felon status remains.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to live. I want to be there for my family \u2014 what\u2019s left. That\u2019s why I took the deal. Yeah, I could still be sitting in [prison] and going through a new trial, having to try and hire another attorney with no money. You know, I don\u2019t want to do that,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n In a statement, the district attorney\u2019s office said it completed a review of cases in which Esernio-Jenssen was involved and found no other cases like Wolfe\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, Ersenio-Jenssen was involved in numerous cases that did not involve the criminal system, and our office has not been involved in any review of those matters. Some of those cases include juvenile dependency cases, cases within the child protective system and child custody disputes,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n Who is Debra Esernio-Jenssen?<\/p>\n Esernio-Jenssen worked nearly her entire career as a child abuse pediatrician, a doctor who specializes in spotting signs of abuse in children. In particular, she specialized in diagnosing shaken baby syndrome.<\/p>\n In a 2023 interview for the podcast Attention on Prevention<\/a>, Esernio-Jenssen said she became a child abuse pediatrician in the 1980s because at the time, New York state, where she was practicing, required children\u2019s hospitals to have one, and no one else in the pediatrics department she worked in wanted the role.<\/p>\n Among the high-profile cases she was involved in was that of Dr. Malcolm Scoon<\/a>, a Queens anesthesiologist who was convicted of manslaughter in 1998 for the death of his baby daughter. She authored multiple papers and manuals on diagnosing child abuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet her diagnoses earned her criticism.<\/p>\n In a 2005 New York child custody case that occurred after Esernio-Jenssen diagnosed an infant with shaken baby syndrome, for instance, her testimony and medical opinion were thrown out by the court. In the case, Judge Edwina G. Richardson said to justify that diagnosis, it appeared Esernio-Jenssen \u201ccame to an initial conclusion, then worked very hard to justify and defend it.\u201d<\/p>\n During a 2011 deposition, Esernio-Jenssen insisted she had never made a bad judgment call or made a misdiagnosis in her then roughly 30-year medical career.<\/p>\n When presented with examples of cases where judges and courts disagreed with her medical conclusions, including the 2005 case, she held firm: She said she wasn\u2019t interested in whether a judge found her credible or not.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, I don\u2019t disagree that the court found that,\u201d she told the attorney examining her in the deposition. \u201cI disagree with the fact that you are saying that I misdiagnosed someone. That is a court finding. That has nothing to do with my medical diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawsuits filed by families in the Lehigh Valley against Esernio-Jenssen portray the doctor as a figure brimming with overconfidence. The deposition documents detail how she smiled when recounting how a medical examiner concluded a young boy\u2019s cause of death was a stroke, after she\u2019d said the boy died from shaken baby syndrome. When asked by the examining attorney why a district attorney used a medical expert other than the one she and her staff recommended, she said it had nothing to do with her competency or the fact that she and her employer were being sued at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I think they were biased,\u201d Esernio-Jenssen said.<\/p>\n In 2010, Esernio-Jenssen became medical director of the University of Florida\u2019s child protection team, where she would once again work alongside law enforcement.<\/p>\n In 2013, however, the state attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit of Florida informed law enforcement agencies that it would no longer rely on interviews conducted by Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s team because its \u201cprotocols do not provide my office with what is needed to comfortably proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n The following year, two complaints were filed against Esernio-Jenssen, one of which led then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott to order an investigation. While that didn\u2019t result in any marks on Esernio-Jenssen\u2019s medical record, the University of Florida demoted and removed her from her position on the child protection team. Following this, she moved to the Lehigh Valley to work for Lehigh Valley Health Network.<\/p>\n At LVHN, just as she did before, Esernio-Jenssen worked with law enforcement and played a role in the conviction of adults accused of abusing children, including Wolfe in 2017 and Shaquila Byrd<\/a>, who pleaded guilty in 2016 to child endangerment.<\/p>\n![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tmc-L-Matthew-Wolfe16_1f93fa.jpg\"\/)
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\nHow the case changed<\/p>\n