Inset: Kelle Anne Brassart (Stanislaus County Jail). Background: The 4500 Fireside block in Turlock, California, where Brassart”s 2-year-old daughter drowned (Google Maps).
A California woman spoke on the phone for 45 minutes with men she met on dating apps while her 2-year-old daughter drowned in a pool.
Kelle Anne Brassart, a 45-year-old mother of six, was convicted of second-degree murder and child neglect in the September death of her daughter Daniellé Pires, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office said. Cops in Turlock, roughly 85 miles south of Sacramento, responded around 3:30 p.m. Sept. 12 to a home in the 4500 block of Fireside Drive for a report of an unresponsive child in a swimming pool.
Cops arrived to find the girl in the pool and began lifesaving measures before paramedics rushed her to a hospital. But doctors later pronounced her dead.
After calling 911, Brassart never bothered to jump in the pool to rescue her daughter, prosecutors said. She claimed she was unable to get to her daughter because of a leg injury that required her to use a wheelchair. But in-home video showed she was able to stand and walk around the house without the wheelchair. In addition, she had a walking boot and crutches.
Brassart also was able to drive and attended nail appointments.
As cops were investigating the drowning, the defendant appeared to be intoxicated. Investigators found full and empty bottles of liquor hidden throughout the home. She had a blood alcohol content level of .246 — the legal limit to drive is .08. Daniellé’s father had told Brassart that she was not allowed to drink booze while watching the girl.
Instead of supervising the girl, Brassart was in the master bedroom chatting with men she met on dating apps. According to a courtroom report from the Turlock Journal, Brassart testified at a pretrial hearing that she had asked her daughter to let the dogs outside. Daniellé followed the dogs into the backyard and was unsupervised for half an hour before she hopped into the pool.
The girl was seen on video struggling in the water before she drowned. She was one week shy of her third birthday.
“This was the result we were hoping for and believed in,” Deputy District Attorney Sara Sousa told the Journal. “She not only failed in her duty to care for her child, but she did it in a way that was so reckless and indifferent to human life that her conduct amounted to that of second-degree murder.”
Brassart’s attorney said the incident was an “accident” and she thought the child was inside. But prosecutors said there was no excuse for her behavior.
“This is a case where the defendant knew, and she didn’t care,” Sousa reportedly told jurors in closing arguments. “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.”
It wasn’t the first time Brassart was accused of neglecting her kids. One of her other children spent nearly a week in the hospital after ingesting medication, prosecutors said. As a result, Brassart took a parenting class about the dangers of leaving young kids unsupervised.
Sentencing is set for Feb. 5. She faces between 15 years and life in prison.
