The Buckingham

Photo Credit: www.sunjournal.com

A 10-year-old girl has been charged with the death of a 3-month-old girl.

Nicole Greenaway, the mother of baby Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, trusted her co-worker, Amanda Huard, to babysit her kids.  One day in July, Greenaway left Brooklyn and her 2-year-old sister at Huard’s Fairfield, Maine, home overnight.

Greenaway insisted that the sitter’s 10-year-old daughter, who’s name remains unknown, was not put in charge of the baby.

“My concern was that she was only 10.  She did like to hold her a lot, feed her, change her diapers and stuff, and I was fine with that, as long as she wasn’t left alone,” Greenaway told the Maine Sun Journal.

But, according to Greenaway, that rule was broken, and Brooklyn’s playpen was placed in the older girl’s room for the night.

Later in the night, around 1:45 a.m., Huard called to let Greenaway know Brooklyn wasn’t breathing.  The girl was taken to the hospital, but by the time the mother arrived, her daughter had been pronounced dead.

The medical examiner ruled that Brooklyn’s death was caused by suffocation.  She also had evidence of amphetamines in her system, which matches that of the 10-year-old girl’s medication for attention deficit disorder.  Brooklyn also supposedly had a black eye and several bruises on her face at the time of her death.

Seven weeks later, on Aug. 30, prosecutors announced that the 10-year-old girl was being charged with manslaughter.  If found guilty as a juvenile, she could face an 11-year sentence.

Huard has not been charged in the case, but has been reprimanded by a state Department of Health and Human services caseworker.  And in that Aug. 10 report, Huard stated that she knew her daughter had “significant behavioral problems,” and that the 10-year-old was not taking her medication properly.