By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
A judge today sentenced Brandy Sherrie Foreman to 25 years to life in prison for the 2006 neglect-related murder of the defendant's 12-year-old daughter, Daelynn.
"This is a particularly egregious case given the vulnerability of the victim and the help that was available to the defendant," Sacramento Superior Court Judge Marjorie Koller said from the bench, just before she imposed the term on the 36-year-old Foreman of Orangevale.
During the 15-minute sentencing hearing today, Foreman pulled a T-shirt over her mouth and shielded her face from news cameras by holding up her hand.
Authorities responded to the defendant's 911 call on July 31, 2006, and found the defendant's withered daughter who had suffered since birth from cerebral palsy dead in her bed. Foreman was arrested seven months later. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder Nov. 16 right before her case was scheduled to go to trial.
The coroner found that Daelynn Foreman she died of bronchopneumonia complicated by malnutrition and neglect. A sheriff's report said the girl was "morbidly thin" with her skeletal features "clearly outlined under her skin." She also had bed sores in which bones showed "through several open holes in the skin."
According to police reports, Foreman had not taken her daughter to the doctor for more than a year before she died, and she also stopped sending Daelynn to a school for the severely physically disabled some 11 months earlier.
In her comments from the bench today, Judge Koller said that Brandy Foreman had been receiving SSI disability checks and also was being paid through the In-Home Support Services program and that she had been taking advantage of assorted programs for years.
Foreman also had access to free food, medical services, therapy and medical equipment, according Deputy District Attorney Rick Miller's trial brief.
Given the services available to Foreman, Judge Koller said, "The degree of neglect and indifference to her child is hard to understand." The judge also noted that Foreman even refused to answer the door when Child Protective Services employees tried to visit her house.
Miller's court papers, however, suggested that Foreman was heavily involved in methamphetamine. They also said that Foreman also was the trustee of a $175,000 trust account in which her daughter was the beneficiary. The funds came from a toxic-mold case they had won against a previous landlord.
In her trial brief, Assistant Public Defender Sue Karlton said that Foreman had been "a dedicated and concerned parent. For all intents and purposes, she did nothing but care for the child."
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