Outrage as woman is let off with £20 fine after leaving fiancé’s daughter, 4, to die
A WOMAN who blamed a “brain malfunction” for leaving her former fiancé's four-year-old girl to die in a sweltering hot car has been let off with a paltry £20 fine.
The courtroom erupted with anger after a jury cleared Brittany Renee Borgess, 30, of multiple charges in relation to the death of Samaria Motyka, who was trapped for more than six hours in a SUV when the mercury hit 36C (97F).
Penn Live reports that the Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, woman was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering.
However, she was fined £20 ($25) after Senior Judge Dudley N. Anderson found her guilty of leaving a child unattended in a car.
Some people in the gallery swore at Borgess as deputy sheriffs escorted her from the courthouse.
The trial heard that on July 22, 2016, Borgess took her son Isaac, two, to a day care centre north of Williamsport.
She then drove to a parking space behind her work – where there was no shade – leaving Samaria, the daughter of former fiancé William Motyka, buckled into a booster seat in the back seat.
Borgess was supposed to take the girl to a day care centre in south Williamsport.
At 3.30pm that day, Samaria – who had managed to free herself from the booster seat – was discovered unresponsive on the vehicle’s floor, with her head on the front passenger seat.
The girl’s internal temperature had rocketed to 43C (110F), according to Williamsport Regional Medical Center.
A Williamsport police officer told the court that after the girl was taken from the SUV he placed a thermometer on a seat and closed the vehicle’s doors. The mercury quickly rose to 49C (120F).
Jurors had to decide whether leaving the child in the SUV was a lapse of memory, or a criminal act.
Her lawyer, Peter T. Campana, said a brain malfunction had caused Borgess to lose awareness, and that she neither consciously disregarded nor knowingly forgot Samaria was in the car.
He said she was chronically sleep deprived and feeling stressed because she was about to be wed to the girl’s father.
Yet Borgess had been taking Samaria to the same day care for two years.
Penn Live says that Campana used testimony of David Diamond, a professor of neuroscience at the University of South Florida, who has researched why someone’s memory suddenly fails – including so-called “forgotten baby syndrome”.
But First Assistant District Attorney Martin Wade, prosecuting, told the court there was no reasonable explanation for Borgess’s action.
He asked how she could have forgotten about Samaria when she spoke to the girl three minutes earlier, when she dropped off her son at his day care.
Penn Live readers have posted their reaction to the verdict, with one commenting: “What a disgusting jury! Life is cheap in America especially an innocent child.”
On a GoFundMe page set up to fight for “justice” following the girl’s death, Samaria is described as a “sweet, bubbly, beautiful 4 year old whose life was cut short”.
A Facebook page called “Justice for Samaria” blasted the verdict and £25 fine as a “slap in the face”.
