Brittany Ann Myers, the 39-year-old former neonatal intensive care nurse and mom of 5, was sentenced Monday to 14 months in jail adopted by three years on probation for brutalizing her 14-year-old son, acts captured on video by the boy’s sister.
Earlier than that incident, the Division of Kids and Households had for a time eliminated Myers’s older daughter from the house after allegations of abuse, claims Myers denied.
Her youngsters reported to authorities 13 months in the past that beatings and psychological abuse was frequent and affected all of them. Authorities interviewed 4 of the 5 siblings on the time of Myers’s arrest in September 2021, once they have been 16, 14, 9 and seven. A 2-year-old boy was not interviewed. Myers confronted just one rely of felony little one abuse–the rely primarily based on video recordings of the incident. The rely carried a most penalty of 5 years in jail.
Myers is to don’t have any contact together with her organic youngsters till both a parenting security plan has been devised or a family-court decide makes that willpower. Courtroom papers filed by the State Lawyer’s Workplace embody references to dependency instances and parental health evaluations, pointing to restricted or severed parental rights. The case had been heading for path till weeks in the past, with three of the 5 youngsters on the state’s listing of witnesses who could have testified. Prosecutors are usually loath to place youngsters via trial if they’ll keep away from it.
Myers tried to keep away from extreme punishment by collaborating in counseling, turning into a consumer of Alpha Ladies’s Heart, a Palm Coast Christian ministry and attending Group Baptist Church in Bunnell. “She carried a lot guilt concerning the occasions that transpired and disgrace surrounding her personal childhood and her skill to be a mom that it was tough for her to confess to herself and others that she was flawed,” Ashley Smith, a consumer providers coordinator, wrote the courtroom final month. Myers took programs with such titles as “Parenting With out Disgrace,” “Worth Packed Parenting” and “Have a New Child by Friday.” Smith documented the lessons taken.
“I consider that Mrs. Myers wants additional assets and help so she will be able to proceed her personal journey of therapeutic and repairing the injury her behaviors have inflicted on her youngsters,” the coordinator wrote the courtroom, with out going so far as asking for any mercy from the courtroom.
The state by then had constructed its case in opposition to Myers with video proof and the accounts of the kids, notably a protracted interview with the 14-year-old boy with Nicole Heise, a senior case coordinator and forensic interviewer for the College of Florida’s First Coast Youngster Safety Staff.
Within the interview, the kid instructed Heise that the incident his sister recorded on video began when Myers demanded the password for a telephone he had, and he didn’t flip it over. So his mom “hit him a number of occasions on the again of his head with the telephone,” based on an account in a movement filed by the prosecution, summarizing the interview. The boy described Myers pushing him to the ground, kicking him on his again, within the abdomen, deliberately kicking him in his non-public components, stomping him together with her ankle, and choking him. (The boy’s 9-year-old brother would additionally report back to authorities that Myers would kick him within the non-public components.)
The incident passed off within the kitchen the morning of September 21, 2021 on Patchogue Lane in Palm Coast.
The following day, the Division of Kids and Households was alerted by Flagler County faculty personnel, and video of the incident, in 4 segments, was turned over to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Workplace. The video’s photos should not as clear because the sounds, which embody Myers repeatedly insulting, mocking and demeaning her son, the sounds of smacking and thudding, and the boy’s cries.
The 7 and 9-year-old youngsters additionally reported beatings, as did the 16-year-old daughter. The daughter instructed authorities that the telephone her brother had introduced dwelling and had been the main target of Myers’s anger was given to the 16 yr outdated by her boyfriend to doc the incidents at dwelling. Florida legislation empowers youngsters to document assailants’ abuse with out the assailants’ information, and with out danger of prosecution for the kids. In any other case, Florida legislation forbids secret recordings.
Days after the incident, when the boy who suffered the beating on Sept. 21 had been positioned in a distinct dwelling, the daughter heard each her mom and father “attempt to persuade [the boy] he’s retarded to control him into going again dwelling.”
When deputies interviewed Myers at her dwelling after the incident was reported, Myers accused her son of being “entitled” and “lazy,” however that essentially the most she did was swat him on his butt. However she was proven the movies of the beatings.
“After watching that video, do you assume now that you just hitting him the way in which that you just did, for no less than 4 minutes, was an affordable use of drive to self-discipline a baby?” Sheriff’s detective Augustin Rodriguez requested her. (Florida legislation, mirroring legislation in 490 different states, nonetheless permits dad and mom to beat their youngsters or use different types of violence so long as the beatings should not with malice or meant to bruise. Sixty-three international locations have outlawed corporal punishment even by dad and mom.)
“I’m not answering that since you’re going to arrest me,” Myers instructed the detective.
Myers had served two weeks in jail when she was first arrested in September 2021, earlier than posting bail on $15,000 bond. That point will likely be credited to her jail sentence. With achieve time, or early launch, to which ought to may very well be entitled after serving 85 % of her sentence, Myers is more likely to be launched from jail in time for Christmas 2023.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant State Lawyer Tara Libby. Myers was represented by Daytona Seashore legal professional Michael Lambert.
The Florida Abuse Hotline accepts reviews 24 hours a day and seven days per week of recognized or suspected little one abuse, neglect, or abandonment and reviews of recognized or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a susceptible grownup. Please use the hyperlinks under to report a baby or grownup abuse.
In case you suspect or know of a kid or susceptible grownup in speedy hazard, name 911.
TEL: 1-800-962-2873
TTY: 711 or
1-800-955-8771
FAX: 1-800-914-0004
Any one who is aware of, or has affordable trigger to suspect, {that a} little one is abused, deserted, or uncared for by a dad or mum, authorized custodian, caregiver, or different individual liable for the kid’s welfare is a obligatory reporter. § 39.201(1)(a), Florida Statutes.
To report an allegation in Spanish or Creole, please name 1-800-962-2873, for TTY use 711 or 1-800-955-8771. This toll free quantity is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days per week with counselors ready to help you.
See the Finish Violence In opposition to Kids web site.
