MODESTO — A jury has been selected in the trial of Turlock resident Kelle Anne Brassart, accused of second degree murder and felony child endangerment in the drowning death of her 2-year-old daughter in September.
If convicted, Brassart faces 15 years to life in prison. She remains in custody at the Stanislaus County Public Safety Facility, with bail set at $2 million.
The jury will be sworn in today at 10 a.m. in the Stanislaus County courtroom of Judge Dawna F. Reeves. Instructions to the jury will be followed by opening statements from Deputy District Attorney Sara Sousa and defense attorney Franz Criego.
Reeves mentioned during pre-trial motions that she anticipates the trial lasting about three weeks. She also stressed the importance of staying on schedule. Jury selection, which figured to take three days, was finished just before noon on the second day.
The jury is made up of eight women and four men, with four male alternates and one female alternate.
Turlock Police officers responded to a 911 call around 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 12 in the 4500 block of Fireside Drive, where they found a 2-year-old child, identified as Daniellé Pires, unresponsive in the backyard swimming pool. The child, one week shy of her third birthday, was later pronounced dead at Emanuel Medical Center.
Video footage showed the child playing unsupervised in the back yard before entering the water. She can then be seen struggling for several minutes in attempt to return to the side of the pool before she finally succumbed.
Criego gave a peek into a possible defense strategy when he asked potential jurors, “Have you ever taken your child shopping, or to the park? And have you ever (accidentally) lost track of them, even for a second?” he said. “It happens, right?”
Sousa, meanwhile, will likely try to debunk the notion that the drowning was a tragic accident by highlighting the role of drugs and/or alcohol.
Though it is not illegal to consume alcohol in one’s home, Brassart registered a blood-alcohol level of .17 and .16 in two separate tests three hours after the incident — .08 is considered impaired.
Because Brassart was in a wheelchair following corrective surgery to both ankles, a modified sobriety test was administered four hours after the incident. According to Sousa, a California Highway Patrol drug recognition expert asserted that Brassart was on a central nervous system stimulant.
Brassart was ordered to participate in parenting courses and given a four-year probation term stemming from a misdemeanor child abuse incident (involving a different child) in January 2023. Five months later, she was required to participate in 20 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, stemming from an incident where she threw a drink tumbler at Daniellé’s father while he was holding the girl, then 8 months old.
