MODESTO — A jury on Tuesday returned guilty verdicts against a Turlock woman charged with murder in the drowning death of her 2-year-old daughter last year.
Kelle Anne Brassart was convicted of second-degree murder and felony child endangerment in the death of Daniellé Pires, who drowned in the pool of the family’s Fireside Drive home on Sept. 12.
Sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a floral print blouse, Brassart showed no emotion as the verdicts were read by the courtroom clerk.
The eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated for less than three hours.
“Daniellé got justice today,” said Pires family friend Julie Jean, who brushed away tears as she spoke outside the courtroom of Judge Dawna F. Reeves. “She did not deserve what happened to her.”
Brassart is set to appear in court again today at 1:30 p.m. to determine factors in aggravation, which could impact sentencing.
Deputy District Attorney Sara Sousa and defense attorney Franz Criego declined to comment until after today’s proceeding, when a sentencing date is likely to be determined.
The 45-year-old Brassart, who faces 15 years to life in prison, was solely responsible for her daughter’s care on the day of the incident. She took the witness stand on Dec. 22 and testified that she asked Daniellé to let the dogs outside. The toddler followed the pets into the back yard and was unsupervised for nearly 30 minutes before she entered the pool. After a lengthy struggle, the child stopped moving and floated for several minutes until she was pulled from the water by Turlock Police Officer Nicholas Gutierrez.
Brassart, confined to a wheelchair after surgery on both her ankles, called 911 at 3:27 p.m. that day, 45 minutes after Daniellé had gone outside.
One week shy of her third birthday, the child was pronounced dead at Emanuel Medical Center.
On Monday, during her closing argument, Sousa showed the jury a chart featuring four phrases — “alcohol abuse,” “mother of six/parenting classes,” “pool and fence condition,” and “David” (referring to the girl’s father, David Pires) — that pointed to a single, highlighted word: “knowledge.”
Reserved and mild-mannered throughout the three-week trial, Sousa was loud and forceful as she pointed out that Brassart, who has five surviving children and completed a 52-week, court-ordered parenting class, should have known that leaving a 2-year-old unsupervised near a swimming pool with a broken security fence was dangerous.
Brassart was also ordered by the court to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings — for a separate incident — and had been asked by Pires to refrain from drinking while she was alone with the child. Pires had gone to work in Morgan Hill at 4:30 a.m. on the day of the incident, and Brassart admitted to drinking vodka that morning. Her blood-level was recorded at .17 and .16 in separate tests — twice the legal limit for operating a vehicle — three hours after the girl’s death.
“This was not her first time,” Sousa told the jury. “Six children … she knows a child cannot be left unsupervised.”
Criego countered during his summation that the evidence did not rise to the level of second-degree murder.
“An accident is not a crime,” Criego said. “Do we punish heartbreak or do we punish crime? If my client believed her child was safe inside, how is that malice? Is that justice or hindsight? If you remember, my client said she thought the child, the toddler, was in the (living) room.”
Criego also took umbrage with Sousa’s emphasis on the broken safety fence.
“The hole in the fence had absolutely nothing to do with this event,” said Criego. “Why? Because the child did not enter the pool area through the hole in the fence. The toddler entered by way of the gate that had been propped open by another. … So, if we follow the DA’s logic, we’ve got the wrong person here on trial. The person who created the event that allowed the child to enter the pool area wasn’t my client.”
Criego began and finished his remarks by telling the jury, “justice is not vengeance and vengeance is not justice.”
During her rebuttal, Sousa took exception to Criego’s definition of second-degree murder.
“The defense talked about how there’s no intent in implied-malice murder,” said Sousa. “There isn’t. Read that jury instruction; jury instruction 520. Read it completely; read it fully. There is no intent. You don’t have to intentionally intend to kill somebody. That’s why it’s called implied-malice murder. You never show intent. That would be for express-malice or first-degree murder, where intent is required.”
Sousa’s closing salvo: “This is a case where the defendant knew, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care that her daughter was at risk; she didn’t care that she wasn’t watching her; because all she wanted to do was be selfish and get drunk.”
