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No Charges Filed Against Mother In Death Of Toddler

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Started 4 years ago by Coremodels
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Coremodels
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http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.apx.-content-articles-CMH-2007-09-04-0025.html
CINCINNATI -- No charges will be filed against a middle school administrator whose toddler daughter died when she was left in her mother's SUV for about eight hours on a day when temperatures reached about 100 degrees, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Leaving the child in the car was "a substantial lapse of due care" but did not meet the definition of reckless conduct necessary for prosecution, said Clermont County Prosecutor Don White.
Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby, 40, is assistant principal at Glen Este Middle School, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati. Authorities said she left her 2-year-old daughter, Cecilia, strapped into a car seat in the SUV's back seat while she went into work on Aug. 23.
There's so many things wrong here I don't even know where to start...
So she's a mother who thinks it's OK to leave a 2 year old strapped in her SUV for 8 hours while she goes to work...and she's a professional when it comes to children as an assistant principal???
I'm astonished no charges are filed, this broad should be put under the jailhouse.

Posted 4 years ago #
dnm
Merion Village
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That wouldve been my thought, I could understand maybe an hour or so tops, but 8? Cmon

Posted 4 years ago #
dKilla
Dublin
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dnm wrote That wouldve been my thought, I could understand maybe an hour or so tops, but 8? Cmon
ROFL?????

Posted 4 years ago #
The Hegemo
Delusions of Grandview
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Supposedly she forgot the girl was in the car because she stopped to buy donuts for a meeting and that threw off her routine.
I'm not a parent, so I can't really say how easy or hard it would be to forget your kid was in the car like that. I do forget my wallet or cellphone in the car often enough.
But it does seem very strange that she could forget and not realize for eight hours that she had forgotten.

Posted 4 years ago #
Manatee
The eternal present
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Good God!! That poor baby!
Un-F-ing believable.
Hope those donuts tasted great.

Posted 4 years ago #
daniel
Old Town East
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trust me, i feel that way too.
but assuming she's a reasonable person who can hold down a job, which i would assume, she has to be completly destroyed over it.
Everone has forgotten something, and there have been consequences. When you look back on it, you just forgot, there is no excuse if you're being honest with yourself. You just forget.
It's just awful that the consequences are a babies life. I feel awful for the mother too. This is going to be hell for her. Especially with all the publicity. Demonized on national news. I'd probably kill myself if this happened to me.

Posted 4 years ago #
Manatee
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It's true, I do feel badly for the mother, too.
But seriously, my kid came out of my body, and for me, there's always been a sort of "homing" reflex based on this. If she's out of my sight for 30 seconds, an internal alarm goes off.
I guess this is why it seems sadder still... the mom must have been having a really crazy day to forget for 8 hours.

Posted 4 years ago #
desecration
Harrison West
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Wow....... :shock:
She could have taken the child into the middle school with her for the day. :(
If I was a parent of a child attending the school where this woman is an assistant principal, I think I would have a hard time justifying keeping my child there under their supervision.
Crazy!

Posted 4 years ago #
Coremodels
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Come on already...I have a DOG who I freak out and turn around when I leave the house to see if I locked the door when he's there.
There's no possible excuse for this other than insanity or criminal irresponsibility.
You forget appointments, you forget your cell phone on the table, you forget your wallet in your other pants...
You don't forget your child in a car for eight fucking hours.

Posted 4 years ago #
daniel
Old Town East
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i'm just sayin', if i were her, I'd get a bottle of sleeping pills and a few long islands from char bar for this evenings cocktail hour.

Posted 4 years ago #
Coremodels
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skreened wrote i'm just sayin', if i were her, I'd get a bottle of sleeping pills and a few long islands from char bar for this evenings cocktail hour.
LOL...fair enough, but my preference would be that she was eating catfish nuggets off a tray on a steel bunk somewhere in a really unattractive jumpsuit ;)

Posted 4 years ago #
EatDrinkColumbus
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"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."
They don't go into the specifics of what happened, or any possible reasons why it might have happened. I doubt that leaving the child in the car all day while she was working was intentional. If it had been, she would have been charged. Maybe she was having a hard time juggling multiple children and her career, maybe she was sleep-deprived, maybe it wasn't in her usual routine to take the child to daycare, maybe she was a single mother, etc. This type of thing has happened many times before, so while tragic, it's not a totally unique occurrence. The reason it happened can only really be known to the parent but it's probably just as inexplicable to them as it is to outside observers. I'm sure her life will never be the same and her life is destroyed as much as her child's life was.

Posted 4 years ago #
enzo

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I am a mom and even though he is no longer an infant, I am HYPER sensitive to his wherabouts AT ALL TIMES--especially when he was a baby..... When I lived in Tampa (where my son was born) you would hear about grandparents forgetting a child in a hot car, which was horrible but a little more understandable than a MOTHER doing something so awful. I heard this story and just cannot even imagine what the heck could have been on that woman's mind that she forgot her child. Did the type and number of Donuts cloud her mind? Seriously she must be so self absorbed or koo koo. I have compassion to a point, but when it comes to neglecting or mistreating a child, there is none. I feel for her now as I am sure she is in a great deal of pain and regret.

Posted 4 years ago #
Coremodels
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EatDrinkColumbus wrote I doubt that leaving the child in the car all day while she was working was intentional.
http://www.tncrimlaw.com/TPI_Crim/07_07.htm
Any person who commits criminally negligent homicide is guilty of a crime.
For you to find the defendant guilty of this offense, the state must have proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of the following essential elements:1
(1) that the defendant's conduct resulted in the death of the alleged victim;
and
(2) that the defendant acted with criminal negligence.
Ã¢â‚¬Å“Criminal negligenceÃ¢â‚¬Â means that a person acts with criminal negligence when the person ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the alleged victim will be killed. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the accused personÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s standpoint.2
Seems pretty clear to me. There is not a single excuse for a person leaving their baby in a car for 8 hours while they go to work that doesn't at the very least fall into this category.

Posted 4 years ago #
EatDrinkColumbus
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Coremodels wrote
EatDrinkColumbus wrote I doubt that leaving the child in the car all day while she was working was intentional.
http://www.tncrimlaw.com/TPI_Crim/07_07.htm
Any person who commits criminally negligent homicide is guilty of a crime.
For you to find the defendant guilty of this offense, the state must have proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of the following essential elements:1
(1) that the defendant's conduct resulted in the death of the alleged victim;
and
(2) that the defendant acted with criminal negligence.
Ã¢â‚¬Å“Criminal negligenceÃ¢â‚¬Â means that a person acts with criminal negligence when the person ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the alleged victim will be killed. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the accused personÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s standpoint.2
Seems pretty clear to me. There is not a single excuse for a person leaving their baby in a car for 8 hours while they go to work that doesn't at the very least fall into this category.
No charges will be filed against a middle school administrator whose toddler daughter died when she was left in her mother's SUV for about eight hours on a day when temperatures reached about 100 degrees, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Leaving the child in the car was "a substantial lapse of due care" but did not meet the definition of reckless conduct necessary for prosecution, said Clermont County Prosecutor Don White.
"Seems pretty clear to me" from the original news article that she will not be charged with a crime, thus the prosecutors do not believe or are unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that her act was criminally negligent homicide.
I'm not defending what the woman did or excusing what happened to her child. I'm just saying, it is really easy to judge someone and crucify them for such a horrible incident, but it can conceivably happen to anyone, even the best, most intuned, and protective of parents.

Posted 4 years ago #
The Hegemo
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The Cincinnati Enquirer has posted surveillance video:
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Dato=20070904&Kategori=VIDEO&Lopenr=309050020&Ref=AR
(BTW, the Nationwide "Life Comes At You Fast" ad was probably not the most appropriate slogan before this story...)
The video shows her making a couple trips to the car to unload stuff (the donuts, I guess), then she gets back in the car and drives it over to park it.
Seems even more crazy that she didn't just park the car and leave, but came back to it a couple times, and even got in and drove it, and still didn't notice the kid...
And again, I'm not a parent, but most two year olds I've been acquainted with are pretty squirmy, noisy little buggers. It seems strange that the kid never woke up and made noise during any of this time.
This story just feels like there has to be something more to it....that even if she didn't intentionally kill her child, she wasn't all there. But maybe there wasn't and it really was just a tragic mistake like the prosecutors seem to believe.

Posted 4 years ago #
Coremodels
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EatDrinkColumbus wrote I'm just saying, it is really easy to judge someone and crucify them for such a horrible incident, but it can conceivably happen to anyone, even the best, most intuned, and protective of parents.
Actually, I would say it absolutely could not happen to even the most average of parents.
A nationwide analysis by the Associated Press in July showed about 340 heat-related deaths of children trapped inside vehicles in the past 10 years, and a wide range of prosecutions and penalties.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070905/NEWS03/709050408/-1/NEWS
Clearly, 35 children a year on a national level is far from something that can happen to anyone.
The idea that someone can remember to pick up donuts for work, remember to go back and park her car legally after dropping them off, but forget that her child is in the car is absolutely ridiculous.

Posted 4 years ago #
enzo

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EatDrinkColumbus wrote "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."
We are all judged by the same legal system. If any of us were to do the same thing we would be judged by the legal system in the same fashion. Maybe there is more to the story...maybe it was her wake up call to realign her priorities.

Posted 4 years ago #
EatDrinkColumbus
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Coremodels wrote
Clearly, 35 children a year on a national level is far from something that can happen to anyone.
I'm sorry, but I disagree with you. The 35 average cases a year you cited shows that it can and does happen. It can happen to good parents and to bad parents. Downplaying the number of cases doesn't make sense.
And we're only talking specifically of leaving your child in the car. What do you think the numbers are for parents forgetting and leaving their kids somewhere else? Just because forgetting to pick them up at school, or accidentally leaving a kid in a store, or leaving a child at home when you go out, or any number of potentially more benign places is less dangerous, doesn't mean it's not the same concept.
I'm still basing my opinion on the original article, not the video just posted. It has no relevance to what I'm saying in general. If the mother is found to be criminally negligent, then by all means, let her be prosecuted and punished.

Posted 4 years ago #
Coremodels
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No offense intended here Eatdrink, but if you really find it as a justifiable "oops" to leave your kid in a car for 8 hours...please don't have children.
EDIT: btw, I wouldn't leave my dog in a car for 15 minutes, let alone 8 hours...and if I "forgot", I'd expect to be put in jail for animal cruelty as I'd want anyone else to be.
You just don't "forget" where you put your kid.

Posted 4 years ago #