An 11-year-old girl accused of killing a three-month-old baby made her first court appearance in the US state of Maine Monday, entering a plea of “no answer” when asked how she responded to the charges of juvenile manslaughter.
The girl is the youngest person to be charged with homicide in Maine in at least 30 years. She was 10-years-old when the alleged crime took place in July at her mother’s home in Fairfield.
The mother, whose name has not been released, was babysitting the infant, Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, overnight when she put the child to sleep in a portable crib in her daughter’s room.
Sometime early the next morning, the mother called police to report that the infant was not breathing, authorities said.
Officials have not released the cause of death, but the deceased baby’s mother, Nicole Greenaway, said that her daughter ingested medication and was suffocated.
In court, the accused girl looked down and simply nodded when asked if she understood the conditions of release. The judge then ordered a competency evaluation for her.
"They both need to go to jail," Greenaway told a Maine radio station Monday. "They need to wake up every morning and look at those bars and realize what they did."
The state’s Department of Health and Human Services, which removed the young suspect from her home, faulted the mother for leaving the infant in the room with the girl. In a letter, an agency case worker said the girl had a behavior disorder that made her unsuitable for caring for the infant, the Associated Press reported.
The state opted not to try the girl as an adult. But if she’s convicted as a juvenile, the maximum penalty is incarceration until age 21.
The girl's lawyer said the manslaughter charge was "too harsh" given the girl's young age.
