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A woman has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of her 3-year-old son in a self-inflicted shooting at a South Anchorage home last summer.
Court records show that Elizabeth Joelle Morin, 22, is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Brayden Heath on Aug. 5.
Medics responded to the home after Brayden shot himself with a gun he found there and pronounced him dead just before 12:30 p.m. Anchorage District Attorney Clint Campion said charging documents in the case were still pending as of Tuesday, but that both the manslaughter and homicide charges against Morin are based on alleged negligence.
I used to think that the parents of children who accidentally killed themselves with firearms had suffered enough and that jail was an unnecessary additional punishment.
That opinion changed about 100 innocent children's lives ago.
Straight manslaughter won't stand up, so they will have to change the charges to negligent manslaughter if the DA wants a conviction. I was on an Alaskan jury, 11 years ago, and this very thing came up.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the suffering of a parent who loses a child in this manner. Nevertheless, I am in favor of prosecuting them and sending them to jail because that might, just might, get the next parent to lock his/her firearms away securely and prevent another tragedy like this.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteI remember the first trial in Florida of a parent whose child died because he failed to put the child in a restraining seat after the law was enacted. The plea by the defense was he had suffered enough.
DeleteThe judge asked how much he thought the CHILD suffered. He was tried and convicted if I remember correctly.
The "pain and suffering" of the parent should have NO bearing in cases such as these. Making examples of people with little capability to think of possible consequences need to have examples held up to them of what can happen to THEM if they don't take basic precautions.
Rest in peace little man.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell triggers are sensitive enough for a toddler to fire is beyond me. Start with that fix immediately and a lot of the kids killing themselves will be impossible. That's just a start of course but it would fix a huge part of the
ReplyDeleteA 3 year old cannot accidentally fire a gun unless the safety is off and there's a round in the chamber. That's negligence. Big time.
ReplyDeleteIt Waa a revolver. And there were only five bullets loaded, for safety because revolvers fo not have one. That being said, a three year old would have had to pull the hammer and the trigger. My grandsons death is now being investigated as a homicide and my family are not the suspect. Fir all of you that have nothing better to do then speculate and judge behind the anonymity of the internet, go hug your lived ones. And I pray that you never get a phone call that changes your life forever. We need to love and support each other. We are all one call, one accident one second away from tragedy.
DeleteMy opinion is that these "accidents" are much like the deaths caused by leaving children in cars, not accidents but a convenient way of killing their child(ren) and getting sympathy for it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad she is being charged, but manslaughter is too light a charge.
The only problem is that parents of small children who shoot themselves or others should be charged as this woman was in every state in the country. In this instance, if the same thing had happened elsewhere the mother would not have been charged. By the way, is there a father in the picture? If so, why isn't he charged as well?
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
I bet the mother and step-father of the 7 year old boy who was shot by his 8 year old brother in Crossville, Tennessee will be charged. People are screaming for it.
DeleteLast week, the parents left 4 small kids unattended in a Verizon parking lot and the 8 year old found his mother's loaded un-permitted gun in her purse and could not resist killing his brother.
6:36, allow me to say, first, that I agree the mother, at least, should be charged.
DeleteHaving said that, I would like to point out 3 things. First, it doesn't usually come to pass that the people screaming for charges actually results in those charges. Second, there has to be a law which the prosecutor can use to charge her. And third, you make it sound as though the 8 year old deliberately shot his brother!
He "could not resist killing his brother"? Really? How did you come up with that?
No relation to the infamous Alaskan Heaths?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that these guns are made with feather-light triggers? Why don't they all come with safety features that prevent them from being accidentally fired, either by a child or by being dropped?
ReplyDeleteThe child's last name is Heath - any relation to the Heaths - as in Sarah Heath Palin of Wasilla, Alaska?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but the cynisist in me came immediately out: somehow, according to the names, and how they are spelled, I get the feeling that this is a dark skinned mother. THAT is the reason they threw the book at her. Not the fact that she was negligent in leaving a loaded gun around her unsupervised kid.
ReplyDelete???? Her name couldn't be anymore white.
DeleteHere you go. https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.morin.5268
DeleteMorin is a Hispanic name. I too am skeptical that she'd have been charged had she been a white Anglo. But everyone who shows this level of negligence SHOULD be charged.
DeleteAccording to this, the child was at least partly Tlingit. https://www.gofundme.com/9h5atug8
DeleteMore to this, please. Ammosexuals are quite adept at convincing themselves that this can't happen to them, so the very real threat of their kids dying is easily dismissed by this bunch. Jail time won't be.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that should have been more OF this...
DeleteI'm a supporter of second amendment rights, but this is negligence and the charges are definitely needed. A three year old NEVER should have been able to access the weapon. Anyone with half a working brain cell realizes at that age kids are curious and will play with just about anything.
ReplyDeleteThe father's name is Heath. Any relation?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't take much intelligence to make a baby, but it sure does to raise one. If she does get convicted, I'm sure it won't be long enough, and she can go back out and try again.
ReplyDeleteToss them in jail and toss the key. I don't buy the "haven't they suffered enough?" and "Accident" excuse anymore, actually I never did. Around the time Gabby got shot, one of my coworkers shot himself in the head while cleaning his gun. The bullet went through the roof of his mouth, deflected off the skull, went through two layers of sheetrock and insulation and wounded a neighbor. I saw him once while on life support, and he's still on life support, but in a nursing home for the duration BUT he wrote a two page suicide letter that descended into incoherent jibberish and it was ruled a suicide. The family gets zilch of his life insurance policy because of a no suicide clause he signed, and he's still (technically) alive. I can't summon the courage to see him again like that, and it bothers my conscience because I've tried to be supportive as I can to his wife and kids.
ReplyDeleteThese innocent kids don't stand a chance, we need stronger gun laws and we need to prosecute the guardians.
I'm scared shitless trig will wind up as one of these stories. Even here where practically everyone has someone in the family who hunts or whatever, there is not a very good respect for guns ownership. I could tell you where 5 guns are in my aunt's house. At least one of them is loaded and maybe more. If I who have only been there twice in the last year know where they are, it's not a big shock that trig would know where they are too. People who have unlocked loaded guns around kids should be put in jail.
ReplyDeleteI'd be more scared of Tripp finding anyone of those guns and using it on Trig. He seems to be more interested in guns than
Deletepoor neglected Trig. Good to see you Maloe. How's the mood in the Palin household after all the negative press she's gotten
recently?
She won't talk to me and I'm kinda scared to text her after all this, but someone in the household told me everyone is walking on eggshells and that its so good trig is at Bristol's because he wouldn't even be getting fed his formula if he were with my aunt......because the people who cared for him there like Todd and Piper are wanting spend as many nights as possible, anywhere else than home....I guess she is being really awful to everyone. Like more awful than normal I mean.
DeleteThanks for responding. No need for you to communicate with her at all especially when everyone is walking on eggshells around her. Sad though that Trig still gets formula
Deleteto eat instead of solids. All that hate and anger inside of her will take a toll on her mental/physical
state eventually...can't wait for a complete breakdown of the ugly witch.