http://www.courttv.com/trials/taped/...ackground.html
Texas v. Prescott: Mom naps, girl drowns
(Court TV) When a 4-year-old child drowned in an apartment complex hot tub, it seemed like a tragic accident. But police believed the child's mother was to blame.
Lisa Prescott found herself facing life in prison if convicted of knowingly and recklessly causing serious bodily injury in connection with the death of her daughter, Sarah.
She was tried before a Bexar County jury beginning April 17, 2002.
The Story
At approximately 2 p.m. on Dec. 6, 1999, the assistant manager of the Camino Real Apartments a gated apartment campus located northeast of downtown San Antonio heard what she originally thought was the sound of a cat crying.
Alice Tijerina left her office to investigate and headed to the complex's large outdoor swimming pool. There, she realized that the cries she had heard were coming from a little girl sitting at the edge of a hot tub located next to the pool.
At first, according to Tijerina, it appeared the girl was holding on to her own leg in the water. But a closer look revealed the gruesome truth the crying child was holding on to the foot of another girl, floating face down in the water. Tijerina immediately jumped in and pulled the unconscious child out of the water and carried her to a nearby apartment, where a resident attempted to perform CPR while 911 was called.
The child who had been crying at the hot tub was 4-year-old Stephanie Prescott, the identical twin sister of the little girl discovered floating face down in the water, Sarah.
The girls lived with their mother, Lisa Prescott, and Lisa's mother, Brenda Cooper, in apartment 2501 at Camino Real, an apartment only a short walk from the pool.
Recognizing the Prescott twins, Tijerina rushed to apartment 2501 and knocked repeatedly on the door. But there was no answer. A second Camino Real employee took over the knocking as Tijerina went back to where paramedics were now trying to revive Sarah Prescott. Still, there was no immediate answer.
Finally, following what some witnesses have estimated was 15 or 20 minutes of knocking, Lisa Prescott, the twins' mother, appeared at the door dressed in her nightgown.
Although she was rushed by ambulance to San Antonio's University Hospital, Sarah Prescott never regained consciousness; in all likelihood, the child was already dead when she was discovered in the hot tub. An autopsy report later listed the cause of Sarah's death as "fresh water drowning."
Approximately one month later, the state of Texas charged then 31-year-old Lisa Prescott with causing, by omission, serious bodily injury to her child. Originally, Prescott's bail was set at $1 million. Later, that amount was reduced, and she remained free while awaiting trial.
After her sister's death, Stephanie Prescott was placed in the custody of an aunt and uncle in Virginia, a couple who once had custody of the twins before they were returned to their mother.
The Prosecution's Case
Prosecutors argued that Sarah's death was the result of criminal activity the willful omission on the part of Lisa Prescott to properly supervise and protect her twin daughters.
If the drowning had been an isolated incident, according to prosecutors, it might have appeared to be a sad but unforeseeable accident. But prosecutors argued Sarah Prescott's death was the result of a pattern of negligence by her mother, a pattern Camino Real staff members and some of the Prescotts' neighbors say they noted in the past.
Several of the people who lived in the vicinity of the Prescott apartment claim they often saw the twins playing on their own, or wandering away from the common area next to their apartment, with no apparent adult supervision. And various Camino Real employees told authorities they discovered the twins wandering around the apartment complex on their own.
On one such occasion, the pair appeared to be lost. On another in a story the jury did not hear the girls were carrying a metal washer. Apparently thinking the washer was a coin, the girls allegedly told the maintenance man who found them that they were going to the store, which was located across a busy main road, to buy coffee for their mother so she'd wake up.
The prosecution argued Lisa Prescott neglected her children simply because she was more concerned with her own needs and desires than theirs. During much of the time that she should have been watching and protecting her girls, say prosecutors, the defendant was sleeping. But the neglect was constant and predictable, according to the state. That pattern of neglect repeatedly placed Stephanie and Sarah into positions of danger and ultimately led to Sarah's unfortunate, but preventable, death.
The Defense Case
Lisa Prescott's lawyers rejected the state's contention that the defendant was a bad mother who neglected her children. On the contrary, they painted Prescott as a single mom trying to do the best she could with her limited resources.
The defense denied accounts of neighbors who said they often saw Stephanie and Sarah playing unsupervised in a common area behind the Prescott apartment. Like most of the apartments at Camino Real, apartment 2501 has a large screened-in back porch enclosed by dark screens that are easy to see out of, but relatively difficult to see in through. During the times neighbors complained Lisa Prescott wasn't supervising her children, according to her attorneys, she was actually watching them from the porch or through an apartment window, unseen by others, yet very much in control.
Nevertheless, there were undoubtedly times when the twins were discovered wandering on their own inside the apartment complex. According to Lisa Prescott, although she always locked the doors, but Stephanie and Sarah had apparently become experts in the art of escape.
The sliding glass door leading to the back porch, even when locked, offered the pair little resistance. And a rip in the porch screen once repaired by the complex, but then torn again afforded a child-sized exit.
In fact, argued the defense, the apartment owners were the villains, not Prescott. Not only were the sliding glass door in the Prescott apartment improperly installed, allowing the twins to exit a supposedly secure home, according to defense lawyers, but the gate leading into the hot tub area was broken and rusted.
Defense lawyers displayed photographs of the gate latch which they claim show that the latch was broken on Dec. 6, 1999, and had, by the amount of rust present, obviously been in disrepair for some time. Had the pool gate been working properly, argued the defense, the Prescott twins would never have been able to enter the area in the first place.
Finally, according to her attorneys, Lisa Prescott could not be convicted because the charge required that the perpetrator "has assumed care, custody, or control" of the child in question. In this case, the defense claimed, the state didn't know and couldn't prove who was supposed to be watching Sarah Prescott at the time she drowned: Lisa Prescott or Brenda Cooper, the twins' grandmother.
According to the defendant, the family woke up and had a late breakfast on Dec. 6, 1999. Later, Lisa and Stephanie lay down for a nap, but Sarah, her mother claimed, was in the care of the child's grandmother.
The Stakes
If the jury determined Lisa Prescott knowingly, by omission, contributed to Sarah's death, the defendant would be convicted of a first-degree felony. The penalty for such a conviction would be life imprisonment.
But if the jury determined Prescott recklessly, rather than knowingly, by omission contributed to her daughter's death, that would constitute a second-degree felony. Such a conviction would carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The Verdict
The six men and six women took approximately one hour on April 18, 2002, to find Prescottguilty of causing, by omission, serious bodily injury to her daughter, Sarah.
But jurors determined the defendant had acted recklessly rather than knowingly, sparing her a possible life prison sentence.
The same panel deliberated in a penalty phase of the trial. While they could have handed Prescott a prison sentence of up to 20 years in prison, they instead recommended probation for up to 10 years with no prison time.
It's this kind of $H!& that makes me mad!
Play 4 Traffic
Linear Mode
