MEDICINE HAT— A 24-year-old woman charged in the death of a toddler at a licensed day home in Medicine Hat was granted bail Tuesday.
Erin Jackman, 24, broke down in tears as a judge imposed conditions that prohibit her from having contact with children under 12 years of age and only allow her supervised visits with her own two children.
Jackman had originally been charged with aggravated assault but the charge was upgraded to manslaughter after 18-month-old Mercedes Pepper died.
Defence lawyer Lyndon Heidinger said outside court his client is happy to be released and he expects her to enter a not guilty plea.
“I think she’s a little bit traumatized by the whole ordeal,” he said. “But I think she’s coping as best she can.
“I think relevant factors going forward include whether there’s other individuals that may be responsible, whether there’s the possibility that it was just an accident.”
Medicine Hat police held a news conference Tuesday to announce the official cause of death.
“The exact cause of death, as we learned from the medical examiner, was blunt force trauma, not rapid acceleration-deceleration,” said Staff Sgt. Brent Secondiak, who suggested that would point more toward a deliberate act than an accident.
The toddler died last Wednesday in a Calgary hospital after being airlifted there with severe head injuries.
Secondiak said a charge of failing to provide the necessities of life was related to an alleged gap between the injury to the girl and 911 being called.
He added that there were four children at the day home operated by Jackman at the time — her own two children, a five-year-old and Mercedes.
Police had not received any previous complaints about the day home.
“We’re going through every child who has every been at the residence, families, anyone who had any contact,” Secondiak said. “That will take several weeks.”
Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins told the news conference there wasn’t much choice but to release Jackman on bail as she had no prior record and is not considered to be a flight risk.
“I think it’s important not to rush to judgment from the police perspective and the public perspective and, obviously, from the Crown’s perspective,” Robins said.
“When somebody loses a child by accident or illness, it’s a very sad thing. To lose your child at the hands of another is a tragedy that I don’t think most people can ever understand.”
Yvonne Fritz, the province’s children and youth services minister, has said the facility is licensed by the provincial government.
Fritz said the home is a satellite of the Children’s Corner day home agency in Medicine Hat, which has had a contract with the family services authority for 16 years. She said the province will conduct its own investigation as well and make its findings public.
Fritz has said the death was “a very unusual circumstance” and there are few problems in Alberta’s 2,800 provincially accredited day homes.