Mother found guilty of murder in Marchella Pierce's death
4-year-old was found dead in bed
Comments (21)BY OREN YANIV AND RICH SCHAPIRO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 4:29 PM
JESSE WARD FOR NEW YORK DAILY NE
Four-year-old Marchella Brett-Pierce died from starvation in 2010.
A Brooklyn mother charged with starving, beating and drugging her daughter was found guilty of murder Wednesday.
Monster mom Carlotta Brett-Pierce showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
But as she was being led out of the courtroom, Brett-Pierce snapped at the judge when asked if she understood that she was not to have any contact with her two surviving kids.
“No, I don’t,” snarled Brett-Pierce, 32. “I was charged falsely.”
Brett-Pierce — who was also found guilty of assault, unlawful imprisonment and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child — is set to be sentenced on June 6.
“We are satisfied with the verdict,” said prosecutor Jacqueline Kagan. “We are gratified that Marchella got some justice.”
The jury deliberated for just over an hour.
“I was very surprised that the jury came back that quickly,” defense lawyer Alan Stutman said afterward, vowing to appeal.
Brett-Pierce’s 4-year-old daughter, Marchella, was found dead in her bed in September 2010 — beaten, bound, drugged, dehydrated and starved.
The battered girl weighed only 18.8 pounds and had nothing but a single kernel of corn in her stomach.
In closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed Brett-Pierce as a careless brute.
“Marchella was a fighter," Kagan said of the sickly girl who spent the first 3½ years of her life in hospitals. "She fought hard to survive, fought hard to live. She lost the fight to her mother."
“Now, you fight for her,” Kagan told the jury in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Using an elaborate PowerPoint presentation for her closing arguments, Kagan juxtaposed pictures of a seemingly healthy Marchella with ones showing her looking disturbingly thinner. She also listed evidence of antihistamines the child was given and proof she was tied to her bed.
"She couldn't be bothered with her," Kagan said of the defendant. "She didn't care."
Stutman noted that many of the incriminating marks on the girl's body were from her hospital stays.
"Marchella didn't come home like a shiny apple," he told the jury. "Marchella came home and there were dents and bruises on her."
He acknowledged that his client ignored many of the doctors' instruction for caring for her frail child but attributed that failure to hard-headedness. He also criticized welfare agencies for not following up with the family.
"Ignorance and stupidity do not add up to depravity," he argued. "This is about a system that failed a dysfunctional mother."
The mother took the stand this week and calmly denied many of the accusations against her, calling Marchella "my baby."
But Kagan encouraged jurors to disregard her testimony, pointing to obscene phone calls that were played in court, in which she referred to her dead daughter as "that b---h" among other profanities.
"The words that she used to describe her show the disregard to this child's life," the prosecutor said.
A second jury will hear summations Thursday in the case against the girl's grandmother, Loretta Brett. She's charged with manslaughter for allowing Marchella, who shared a room with her, to starve and die.
oyaniv@nydailynews.com
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Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/prosecutor-describes-brooklyn-mom-trial-4-year-old-starvation-death-heartless-article-1.1075182#ixzz1uSVelorM
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