Byline: Scott Michels

GREENSBORO -- A Greensboro man accused of shaking his 8-month-old son to death was found not guilty Tuesday evening.

Friends and family of Gary Patton Baldwin filled the fourth-floor courtroom and let out an audible sigh of relief when the clerk read the words "not guilty."

"Now we can grieve for our son," Baldwin, teary-eyed and smiling, said after the verdict.

It took a jury of seven men and five women a little more than an hour to acquit Baldwin of involuntary manslaughter in the October 2002 death of his son William. He had faced up to two years in prison.

Outside the courtroom, Baldwin hugged his friends and family, and said, "The nightmare ...