A Dakota County jury on Friday convicted a south-metro woman of breaking a dozen bones in a 6-month-old family member while providing child care in early 2009.

Laura M. Wilkinson, 31, of Eagan, was found guilty of six out of seven felony counts of malicious punishment of a child after the baby girl, Bailey Soppeland, was found to have a dozen fractures in various stages of healing.

Prosecutor Nicole Nee told jurors that the fractures -- of all of the baby's limbs plus two ribs -- were caused by someone squeezing, yanking and twisting the baby between January and April 2009.

Judge David Knutson set sentencing for Sept. 10. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, but prosecutors will seek a harsher punishment because of the child's vulnerability and other factors, said Phil Prokopowicz, chief deputy of the Dakota County attorney's office.

Nee told jurors that Wilkinson admitted to a police detective that she squeezed or roughly handled Bailey Soppeland five or six times. Nee said the sitter, a cousin of the baby's father, took out frustrations over her own lack of direction on the baby.

"The evidence shows you [that] the defendant knew she was hurting Bailey," Nee said, adding that Wilkinson told police she was exasperated with the baby's frequent crying.

But defense attorney Jeff Dean said Wilkinson coped by putting on headphones. Dean said police targeted Wilkinson early on and failed to ask basic questions of the parents, Daniel and Michelle Soppeland, which could have cast suspicion on the father.

Dean also told jurors that because of an incomplete police and medical investigation, nobody tested Bailey for rickets, a disease he contends could have led to the broken bones.

Rickets, a metabolic disease, can cause bones to be susceptible to fracture, even from ordinary handling. Some experts say the disease can be passed to a baby by a nursing mother who is deficient in Vitamin D.

Earlier this week, a defense witness, Dr. Janice Ophoven, a pediatric forensic pathologist in Woodbury, testified that medical records she reviewed indicated that Bailey had rickets.

Nee told jurors there are only unproven theories that breast-feeding by mothers who are deficient in Vitamin D can lead to the disease in their babies, who then have fractures that can mimic abuse.

"This is speculation," Nee said. "This is something that nobody sees, that none of her treating physicians see -- or believe, really."

Nee also reminded jurors that the fractures, discovered during a routine baby check-up in April 2009, stopped after the parents quit using Wilkinson as a baby sitter.

When the fractures were discovered, a physician wrote orders for the baby to be tested for rickets but then canceled the tests because an Eagan police detective told him that Wilkinson had confessed, Dean said.

"We are pleased with the jury's verdict in this case," said County Attorney James Backstrom. "These were violent acts which seriously injured a young infant."

Bailey, now nearly 2 years old, has recovered.

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017