MEDICINE HAT — A former day-home operator in southern Alberta has pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of a toddler.
Erin Jackman, 26, was charged with manslaughter and was to go on trial in Medicine Hat on Oct. 1.
Crown prosecutor Ramona Roberts called the revised charge an “alternative offence, not a lesser one.”
The 18-month-old girl died in Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary in July 2010 from massive head trauma.
During Jackman’s four-day preliminary hearing, a video-taped police interview was shown in which she told an officer that she flung the child into the corner of a door. The girl hit a door hinge as Jackman tried to get her to take a “time out” by facing a corner for misbehaviour.
“She refused to stand in time out and I kept, you know, pushing her back, turning her back into being in time out,” Jackman told police Sgt. Darlene Garrecht during the July 19, 2010, interview.
“And then she freaked and screamed because I turned her back and (she) went to whack me and I just pushed her too hard all the way around.”
Jackman told Garrecht it was at that point that she realized her frustration had gotten the better of her.
“I got so mad at her that I was just walking away, but I flung her back into time out, twisting her but obviously too hard,” Jackman said. “I felt really bad and I cuddled her, told her I was sorry.”
Jackman didn’t call 911 until more than two hours later, according to information from the police interview.
Jackman is to be sentenced Oct. 18.