Justice for all.
Report Says Mom Left Toddler In Car Before
Woman Won't Face Charges
POSTED: 7:59 am EDT September 5, 2007
UPDATED: 3:02 pm EDT September 5, 2007
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BATAVIA, Ohio -- A police report indicates that an Ohio woman had left her 2-year-old daughter alone in a car on previous occasions prior to the girl's death, reported WLWT-TV in Cincinnati.
Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby will not face criminal charges for leaving her daughter Cecelia Slaby in a hot sport-utility vehicle Aug. 23 for more than eight hours, the Clermont County prosecutor's office said.
The Union Township police report on the girl's death said that Nesselroad-Slaby left the girl in a car on "numerous occasions," including at least once in the week prior to the girl's death.
Hamrick said that the report indicates that investigators talked to current and former workers and discovered that Nesselroad-Slaby left the girl in the car while she was at the Compass School in Mason.
Hamrick said that some of the reports were documented, while others were not.
The report indicates that investigators were pushing for a child endangerment charge.
Prosecutor Don White said Tuesday that he would not prosecute Nesselroad-Slaby in the girl's death, saying it was an accident.
Leaving the child in the car for the workday was "a substantial lapse of due care," but it did not meet the definition of reckless conduct necessary for prosecution, said White.
Nesselroad-Slaby's attorney, R. Scott Croswell III, has said that she became distracted from her normal routine of dropping Cecilia at a baby-sitter'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.
Union Township police released security camera video on Tuesday that showed that Nesselroad-Slaby returned to the SUV five times during the day, and once moved the SUV to another location in the parking lot.
Union Township police said they believe Nesselroad-Slaby should have been charged with child endangerment.
White said that from numerous comments from the public that his office has received, people are about evenly split regarding possible prosecution.
"However, unlike most elected officials, judges and prosecutors should not, and by law cannot, make their decisions based on popular or public opinion," White said. "Judges and prosecutors are bound by the law."
Nesselroad-Slaby has been on paid leave since her daughter's death. There was no answer at her home phone after the prosecutor's decision was announced.
