She was a little cutie,that's for sure. :-(
Posted on 08/21/2004 7:58:16 AM PDT by HawkeyeLonewolf
A woman whose 3-year-old daughter died after being left inside a hot car received a sentence of five years probation in Fulton County Superior Court Friday. Prosecutors wanted Nakia Burgess to spend six years in prison.
The sentencing came after Burgess took the stand, accepted responsibility for Asan'te Burgess' death, and said there was no worse punishment than watching your own child die.
“I have images of her calling for me, grabbing for the window when I know she was calling for me because I was the one that always protected her, I was the one that loved her. Even all that stuff I’ve gone through, it still isn’t worse than what she had to go through and I’m going to have to live with that and deal with that for the rest of my life,” she said in court today. “Nothing’s gong to make that better, there’s no drug anybody can give me, there’s no counseling – it may help but it’s not going to take those images away.”
Burgess has since given birth to another child.
Burgess had entered a guilty plea to charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
During the sentencing hearing, Burgess sobbed as a pediatric pathologist testified that Asan'te Burgess started to claw at herself as the temperature rose inside the parked car.
"She was clawing at herself to escape," testified Dr. Harry Lee Wilson. "This car was a torture car."
Judge Constance Russell called a short recess when Burgess ran from the courtroom
The judge in issuing the sentence said, “I could say go to jail for 20 years and that is going to impose any greater punishment than what a caring parent has to live with when they lose a child because of their own behavior.” .
Prosecutors say Burgess parked her car in the sun on the top floor of the Tower Place parking deck and knowingly left her daughter inside it as she went to work at her new job in October of 2002.
Burgess' attorney said the mother could not find a babysitter to care for her daughter, who suffered from Downs Syndrome. They said Burgess, who had recently moved from New Jersey, did not consider the effects of the Georgia heat and parked at the top because her daughter was afraid of the dark. She also checked on the child several times throughout the day.
It's estimated that the temperature inside the vehicle may have risen as high as 127 degrees.
11Alive News Web Producer Manav Tanneeru contributed to this report.
And when this story was originally presented back when it happened, the focus was on the difficulty single moms have of finding daycare.
#1, this was willful -- she should get jailtime no matter what.
#2, this was stupid -- New Jersey summers I'm sure get bad enough to kill if you leave a kid in the car roasting in the parking lot (when she checked on the kid was it to rebaste her?)
#3, this is ridiculous... I think the article speaks for itself.
I think she got tired of caring for a special needs child and just took matters into her own hands.
#4 Where was dad?
The kid's name was "Asan'te", you figure it out.
This is sad.
"I think she got tired of caring for a special needs child and just took matters into her own hands."
It's very hard to think otherwise. I can't imagine how the child even lived long enough to be "checked on" even one time. And it certainly does get hot enough in NJ for a person to die in a closed car. I'm sure it has happened here on several occasions. They even have signs up at Quick Check reminding people not to leave their children alone in cars, but that may be more a warning about car jacking.
She probably left the kid on the roof so people would be less likely to spot it. Five years probation is not enough, and the old "no punishment worse than what I've already gone through" is a crock. How long would we give her if it was another person's child? It's a crime against the state, not a self-inflicted injury.
God help her new baby, if they are foolish enough to allow this murderous mom to keep her/him.
She was a little cutie,that's for sure. :-(
I think you're absolutely right on your assessment of it. I always say that if Susan Smith had left her kids in the car in the heat to die, as opposed to drowning them in the car, she'd be a free woman today. This woman deliberately left her kid in the car, and she only gets probation? The only reason she went to check on the kid was to see if the child was dead yet. Disgraceful.
The court has spoken; stupidity can't be regulated.
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