Mother sues babysitter and daughter after both avoid jail for baby's death
Mother of slain Maine infant sues adult babysitter and her daughter, 12, after the girl avoided jail time and mother was never charged
- Nicole Greenaway filed a suit against Kelli Murphy, 12, and her mother Amanda Huard seeking damages
- Huard was babysitting Greenaway's three-month-old baby girl Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway in 2012 when the baby died
- Her daughter Kelli Murphy pleaded guilty to several misdemeanor charges in a plea deal
- She was the youngest person charged with manslaughter in the state in more than 30 years, but those charges were dropped as part of the deal
- She was only 10 years old when first charged in the 2012 death of three-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway
- Foss-Greenway had traces of Murphy's ADHD medication in her system and may also have been suffocated
- Greenaway is seeking unspecified damages for funeral costs and emotional turmoil as well as punitive damages
13
View
comments
The mother of a three-month-old Maine girl who died while in the care of a baby sitter has filed a lawsuit against the caretaker and her 12-year-old daughter.
The suit filed by Nicole Greenaway in Kennebec County Superior Court alleges negligence on the part of the Fairfield woman who was entrusted with the care of Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway and seeks unspecified damages.
The baby sitter's daughter Kelli Murphy, who was 10 at the time, had faced a manslaughter charge, but pleaded guilty last month to several misdemeanors. Her mother Amanda Huard was never charged.
Tragic: 12-year-old Kelli Murphy pleaded guilty to several manslaughter charges in connection to the 2012 death of 3-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenway (pictured)
Seeking damages: Nicole Greenaway has filed a lawsuit less than a month after Kelli Murphy plead guilty in a plea deal
Greenaway's attorney, Sheldon Tepler, tells the Morning Sentinel the suit is an opportunity to achieve some measure of justice after being torn apart by Brooklyn's death by suffocation in July 2012.
A lawyer who represented the mother could not be reached.
The suit doesn't seek specific monetary compensation, reports Central Maine, but lists the types of damage the family suffered.
Brooklyn's four-year-old sister Madison was in the room at the time of the baby's death and suffered 'great pain and suffering and mental anguish … requiring hospitalization and medical treatment.'
Greenaway is also seeking damages for the suffering of her baby daughter and the anguish she has suffered since her death, funeral expenses and the loss of the comfort and companionship of her daughter.
RELATED ARTICLES
'He's done with his sentence but my daughter is still living... 
'They were the kind of screams that only come from a...
Share this article
ShareShe's also asking for punitive damages 'to deter (Murphy’s) future outrageous conduct.'
Tepler told Central Maine that suing Huard and Murphy is the only recourse for Greenaway.
'You can’t get revenge,' he said. 'People need to feel validated. They really need to feel that their loss is validated. The only way you can do that in this country is by seeking monetary damages.'
Kelli Murphy pleaded guilty to several misdemeanors in a plea deal in May.
A judge signed off on the deal which dropped manslaughter charges against Murphy, now 12, in a closed-door hearing. As part of the deal, Murphy will submit to a treatment plan and remain in the custody of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services until she turns 18.
Bereaved: The suit is against Kelli Murphy, 12, and her mother Amanda Huard, who had been babysitting Brooklyn when she died
Justice: Greenaway's attorney, Sheldon Tepler said the suit is the family's opportunity to achieve some measure of validation after Murphy avoided jail time and her mother was never charged
'I'm satisfied with the outcome. It was the best that we could accomplish given the complexities of the case and the age of the juvenile,' Deputy Attorney General William Stokes said.
Murphy was first charged in the death of three-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenway in July 2012.
The charges stem from a night in which the baby stayed over at Murphy's house while her mother Huard babysat the infant.
An autopsy and toxicology performed on the baby found large quantities of the same prescription medication Murphy took to control her Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The deal came after the baby's mother Nicki Greenaway called for charges against Huard, saying the woman was neglectful in watching Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, and that she should be held liable for her conduct.
The state disagreed.
'Legally speaking, it’s not possible,' Stokes said. 'One of the things we have to prove in any death is causation, and we don’t have any evidence that [Huard] caused anybody’s death.'
The juvenile petition against Murphy contained no additional details about the case, including Brooklyn's cause of death, but the baby's mother, Nicki Greenaway, claims to have been told her child was suffocated.
When Greenaway saw her daughter for the first time at a funeral home, the baby had a black eye, bruises on her nose and marks that looked like fingerprints on her cheeks, she said.
'Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway has died as a result of your neglect,' said a notice delivered to Huard in the weeks after her child's death. 'You knew that (the 10-year-old) should not be babysitting children but have continued to allow her to do so.'
Gone too soon: Baby Brooklyn died while in the care of Murphy and her mother - who was babysitting that night
Brooklyn's mother, Nicki, said traces of the 10-year-old's medication was found in her daughter's system
Murphy had already been labeled as a danger to children before Foss-Greenaway's death, according to documents from the DHHS which detail that she suffers behavioral problems, including oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD and attachment disorder.
Former tenants of Huard's house also claimed Murphy also harmed their baby.
Ashley Tenney and Chad Hopkins have named the 10-year-old as being responsible for their daughter's hospitalisation in June, brought on by sudden seizures.
Doctors found the same medication in eight-month-old Jaylynn's system that is used by the accused girl to control her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after they had been left alone together.
Tenney and Hopkins were living with in the basement of Huard's home, the Maine Sunday Telegram reported.
They say the girl was alone with their daughter in June 2012, while Hopkins was elsewhere in the house and Tenney was out at work.
The couple trusted the girl, they said, that she had shown a 'healthy interest' in their daughter up until that point, offering to help with diaper changes and bathing.
When Tenney arrived home from her shift at Dunkin' Donuts she found her daughter pale and sweating.
'She was soaked in sweat, just drenched,' said Tenney, 20. 'She was so pale. Whiter than a sheet of paper.'
As they rushed her to the emergency room at MaineGeneral Medical Centre in Waterville, Jaylynn began convulsing and fitting.
'She was on her father's lap, and her head just dropped back, and she rapidly started shaking,' Tenney said. 'The first one lasted like 20 seconds.'
The sudden seizures baffled doctors at first as they struggled to work out what had brought them on.
Medical experts consulted one another and Jaylynn was transferred to Maine Medical Centre in Portland to be reassessed.
Shock: Ashley Tenney (left) claims Murphy was also responsible for her daughter Jaylynn's (right) hospitalisation in June
'If her head went to the left her arm went to the right and vice versa,' she said. 'Her heart rate was high and they were worried and didn't know what to do for her.'
In Portland doctors probed Tenney about what medications were in Huard's house, matching up the 10-year-old's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs with what they found in Jaylynn's system.
So much was detected, Tenney said, that her daughter 'should have been dead'. She added that there 'wasn't any way' she could have ingested the medication on her own.
In the days following the scare, Tenney and Hopkins began looking for a new place to live, sickened by the belief that Huard's daughter had deliberately hurt their own.
She said she had found a canvas bag in a drawer in the 10-year-old's bedroom, filled with more than 100 photographs of Jaylynn, some torn, others with words like 'my baby girl' written on them.
The couple were interviewed by workers from the DHHS Office of Child and Family Services, as were with the 10-year-old and her mother. All four were told that the girl should not be given care of young children.
But despite the warnings the girl was once again left alone with a toddler just three weeks later, this time with three-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway whose mother, Nicki, had left in Huard's care overnight.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pa3IpbCmmZmhe6S7ja6iaKaVrMBwrdGtoJyklWJ%2Fd4KPbWluZ32kwamx0WaqpZmZo3qOrcinnGahnpuur8CMrKyeq12Wsba402aZmpqpqLa1wMSrZJ2ZpZy1tbHRZpivp5mZequtyKVkraGdmnupwMyl