Posted on 09/06/2007 7:18:13 AM PDT by Froufrou
No charges will be filed against a middle school administrator whose toddler daughter died last month when she was left in the back seat of her mother's SUV during a heat wave, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Leaving the child in the car for the work day 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 for about eight hours on Aug. 23 while she was at work at the school.
Temperatures outside reached about 100 degrees.
I agree with you.
To hell.
“I’d like to know how many mothers could go EIGHT hours without thinking of their 2 year-old!!”
Leaving your child in the car three times prior to the actual death...what a freakin’ idiot! How could you be around children all day and not even remember that YOUR OWN CHILD was in the back seat baking?
You’re right. This is a direct result of what happens when parents give up the responsibility of raising their own children and give that responsibility to someone else. Clearly, day care is not quite the same as being cared for by Mommy or Daddy all day.
Wrap your mind around this— for 8 hours, no one knew where this 2 year old was, and no one cared enough to make sure to find out. Sure, day care is just as good as staying at home with your child...
I'm on my way out the door, but there are other articles stating that this woman has left her child in the car unattended several times before and that she was warned by a policeman about it only 2 days before the child died.
I hope someone will post more articles.
The community is outraged over this.
This woman should be exiled to a rock somewhere, to contemplate her actions until the day she dies, never to have contact with another person ever again.
Sorry to break this to you, but stay-at-home moms have also forgotten their children in cars.
Do we know why she moved the car so many times during the day?
I know of people who have alcoholic bosses and they will purposely park further out in the lot, beginning when they first arrive at work in the morning, and then incrementally move their car closer and closer to the workplace entrance, as the day wears on (a total of 4-6 moves daily, on average).
The reason they do this is to have a drink each time they go out to their car, and also so when they exit the office around 5PM, they don’t have to stumble as far to get to their car, to drive home (the fewer employees that notice on the way out, the less of a risk).
I personally knew a guy who was a VP at a Fortune 500 company who managed to get away with doing exactly what I wrote above for YEARS, not weeks or months. And it was an everyday thing.
Here's an article about that.
Assistant Principal Left Toddler In Car Previously
UPDATED: 6:58 pm EDT September 5, 2007
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A police report indicates that Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby left her 2-year-old daughter alone in a car on previous occasions prior to the girl's death.
A police report showed the Symmes Township woman had left Cecilia Slaby in a car on at least three occasions, including an incident when she was left unattended for 10 minutes two days prior to the girl's death.
Tara Phillips, a teacher at Compass School in Mason, told police that Nesslroad-Slaby asked her 5-year-old daughter to hurry up during an Aug. 21 visit to the school because "the baby was in the car."
Phillips told police that the older girl asked to stay and watch part of a play she was participating in, and both she and her mother stayed inside the building for 10 more minutes.
"Mom didn't go to check on the baby," investigators said in their report.
Police said school officials had cautioned the Slaby family about leaving their children alone inside vehicles after parents alerted them to the situation.
Her attorney has said Nesselroad-Slaby became distracted from her normal routine of dropping Cecilia at a babysitter's house because she stopped to buy doughnuts for a faculty meeting, then forgot about the girl when she unloaded the doughnuts from the back of the vehicle.
Surveillance cameras show that Nesselroad-Slaby returned to the SUV five times during the day, and once moved the SUV to another location in the parking lot.
The babysitter told investigators that she did not call to ask about the girl because her father, Gary Slaby, sometimes kept the child at home without notifying her.
The police report indicates that investigators pushed for a child endangering charge, but Clermont County Prosecutor Don While said Tuesday that he would not prosecute Nesselroad-Slaby in the girl's death.
White told News 5 on Wednesday that the investigation had revealed unsettling information, but he said they were not criminal.
"The facts would never support reckless conduct under the law," White said. "We researched every case we could find, and cases are reversed every day by courts of appeals."
White said his office could have filed charges and secured a conviction by appealing to juror emotions, which he said would have certainly been overturned on appeal.
“Yeah, those are good ideas. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that its often just a terrible mistake when this happens.”
How many bloody mistakes does the b*tch get??? Your replys are blowing me away!
They will probably promote her.
No way is leaving your own two year old in your own car for 8 hour, sitting in front of your place of work, qualify as "lapse of due care."
It is egregious neglect that caused the death of an innocent child that was physicially restrained from doing anything to save herself!
“White said his office could have filed charges and secured a conviction by appealing to juror emotions, which he said would have certainly been overturned on appeal.”
I was almost ready to agree with Shrinker until I read the statement at the end of the link Silverleaf provided. ‘Juror emotion’ my you-know-what.
It’s wrong and it only takes a second to put the child on your hip and taker her with you. I’m appalled that Ohio has no law protecting children from being left in the car. I’m pretty sure that in Texas there would be criminal charges.
Perhaps she just "blew off" the warning?
This was negligence, different from an accident. It’s like if someone was gabbing on their cell phone and hit a pedestrian.
She had her head up her @ss and her child died.
That’s cuz he “grew” in his position.
Sounds like this witch has used the car for a babysitter numerous times. (ggrrrrrrr)
Previous reports establish a pattern of irresponsibility and does not excuse this abhorrent behavior. Posters here on this thread who in their replies are apologists for this tragic event are repeatably try to excuse this dirt bag....
So in Ohio, If I forget that my gun is loaded, and make a “mistake” by blowing a hole in someone’s chest I get a pass?
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