these are the x-rays of cody s fractures from 1993. can you say to a degree of medical certainty cody duncan has metabolic bone disease? absolutely. no question he had it. reporter: he believes cody had infantile rickets, a disease of early life which bones do not mineralize properly. that s the description of fractures. many of their bones are weak. they are not fragile for a day or two, they are fragile over a period of time. reporter: he says babies with the disease have bone sos fragile, regular handling can cause a break. they are often misdiagnosed as abuse. this is the case of a wrongfully convicted man. no victim or crime. reporter: working to get the conviction overturned. they say the research is new
has known for 20 years. two phone calls a week with his father. i wish i could talk to him in person. it hurts because i don t i just wish i could see my dad. cody duncan is leading the crew said to get his father s conviction overturned. he is appealing asking for another chance to have a new trial. that appeal will be filed within days. back to you. thank you so much, jean. this case is bringing up a lot of legal questions. next, the panel discusses the steps ahead for jim duncan. who are you? i m vern, the orange money retirement rabbit from voya. vern from voya? yep, vern from voya. why are you orange? that s a little weird. really? that s the weird part in this scenario?
science and will prove the faktures were medical in nature, not criminal. you petition the court. what do you want them to do? look at the evidence. hear the testimony of the doctors. learn about the diagnosis and the science and find that this would have made a difference in the trial and grant mr. duncan a new trial. reporter: cnn reached out to trial prosecutor morton. she denied a request for interview. the florida pediatrician was the head of the local child protection team. he examined cody and testified that cody s fractures were cause zed by abuse. he stands by his testimony. no alternative explanation. no history consistent with accidental injury and the type of injuries themselves. so, if you put all those factors together, then you get the diagnosis of child abuse. love you. love you, too. all right. bye bye. bye. reporter: this is all cody
who were they? me, my son and rhonda. did you say, what happened to cody? yeah, i always thought i failed, as a father, to protect my son. i didn t know what happened to him. reporter: a mystery to the family, especially since cody didn t have bruises or internal injuries to his soft tissue. what no one knew at the time, one person stepped forward to police. that person, doris kibbe, rho a rhonda s grandmother said she was an eyewitness to jim harming his son. start from the beginning. reporter: this is 1994 police video obtained by cnn where doris describes to detectives what she saw jim do. i walked in. he took the baby and did this with it. reporter: two days later, they charged jim with 13 counts of aggravated child abuse.
graduated from college last year. cody duncan is now 23 years old and says he knows his father was wrongly convicted. did your father abuse you when you were a little baby? no. i don t believe so. you never had a doubt? i never once had a doubt that he hurt me. i don t believe it. reporter: if so, why then did infant cody have so many bone fractures? more than 1,000 miles away in springfield, illinois. radiologist dr. david researches bone disease. the family believes he has the explanation of what happened to cody. it all right started at this point. he is an author of a 2014 study. in a peer reviewed paper, they looked at previous studies of infant fractures determined to be from abuse. the findings, the findings likely came from bone disease.