Attorneys delivered opening statements today in the trial of a 26-year-old who is accused of abandoning her daughter in a drainage pipe on General Electric’s Schenectady campus last year.
On March 10th, 2024 then-24-year-old Persia Nelson was found on GE’s Schenectady campus, claiming she didn’t know where her baby had gone.
That led multiple law enforcement agencies to engage in a search for Nelson’s nearly 11-month-old daughter, Halo Branton.
Branton was later found unresponsive with water up to her neck in an underground structure on the campus. An autopsy later revealed the child had died of hypothermia and exposure.
In the Schenectady County Courthouse Wednesday, jurors heard from prosecutor and Schenectady County Assistant District Attorney, Christina Tremante-Pelham that the baby’s death was a result of Nelson’s actions on March 9th, 2024.
“This case is about choices, a mother’s choices, deliberate acts and then the abandonment of her vulnerable, utterly dependent infant,” Pelham said.
Pelham told jurors that Nelson had attended a family birthday party on Osterlitz Avenue where jello shots were being served. The lawyer noted that the jury would hear that Nelson was drinking and smoking marijuana at the party.
Pelham said the party that night eventually moved from Osterlitz to a separate home, a few streets over, on Campbell Avenue.
She said the group arrived at the Campbell residence “a little after 8.”
“Now around 9 o’clock, so not long after they are there a conversation is happening between Persia and some of the other people that are there and whatever the subject was, she gets angry,” Pelham said.
The assistant district attorney told jurors that Nelson stormed off as a result.
“Walks out of the house, with the baby, no coat on the baby, just a blanket, no supplies, no bag, not even her phone, she is mad. She storms out grabs the baby and leaves,” Pelham said.
Pelham says that night in March was cold and rainy with temperatures in the mid-30s.
The prosecutor said Nelson made her way to Twelfth Street – a dead end – before trekking through the woods, making her way down a large embankment, climbing over a fence and then landing on the campus of GE – all while carrying the infant.
Pelham says Nelson then began making her way to the well-lit main area of the campus before approaching a structure shrouded in darkness.
“Despite there being that building right there ahead, despite it being in the 30s outside, she leaned into that structure and just, dropped the baby into it,” Pelham said.
Pelham explained to the jury that the prosecution would present evidence that would make anything other than a guilty verdict indisputable for all three charges Nelson is facing including second-degree murder.
Her counsel, Mark Sacco – a criminal defense attorney – told jurors that the evidence presented throughout the case will show that Nelson loved her child with “every fiber of her being.”
However, Sacco did agree with the prosecution on some of the facts, including that Nelson was attending the birthday party, smoking marijuana and drinking.
But Sacco says Nelson left the residence on Campbell Avenue with the intent of returning to the original location of the birthday on Osterlitz.
That residence was where Nelson was staying then.
“As you leave the front door of 2121 Campbell Avenue, you would have had to have made a left and go down sixth and then over to Osterlitz. Unfortunately, my client made a right,” Sacco said.
The defense attorney added that as Nelson was leaving the weather turned “horrendous.”
“When I say horrendous, I’m talking about very, very difficult conditions, freezing rain, sideways rain,” Sacco said.
Both the prosecution and defense say Nelson was new to the area and that she moved from Hudson and Sacco says her lack of familiarity with the area and the pitch black of the night led to her becoming lost.
“She’s not going out to do something to the baby, evidence will show you, she’s trying to go home and she gets lost,” Sacco said.
Sacco said the evidence will show that Nelson protected the baby on the entire journey, acknowledging that she did set the baby down in the structure.
But Sacco asked jurors to consider if Nelson’s actions actually show evidence of depraved indifference for human life – a key part of the definition of second-degree murder.
“How can you be lost, do everything possible, be scared, hold the child, bring the child through the swamp, tell the people who wake you up ‘where’s my child,’ try and work with the police who interview you and be depraved, that’s not what the evidence will show you,” Sacco said.
Sacco told the jury that they will hear from witnesses including a toxicologist, a meteorologist and doctors while Tremante-Pelham said they will hear from law enforcement and family members.
The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
