Dad Forgot his Daughter and Killed Her

Father Convicted of Manslaughter in Daughter's Death

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 20, 2002; 12:11 PM

A Manassas man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect this morning in the death of his 21-month-old daughter, who died in the family van when temperatures inside reached 120 degrees.

Kevin C. Kelly, 46, faces a maximum 15 years in prison. The jury, which had deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours, now is considering the sentence.

Kelly, a father of 13 children, never noticed that his youngest child, Frances Kelly, was missing for seven hours on May 29 as he went about his daily chores and even picked up pizza for dinner for the rest of the family in a different car.

He sat back in his chair and folded his hands in front of him but was otherwise without emotion as the verdict was read. His wife and several of his children broke into sobs.

The case had gained notoriety in large part because of the family's strong connection to the community, particularly at All Saints Catholic Church. Kelly's supporters have been vocal in their criticism of the decision to prosecute a father who lost his youngest daughter.

Several of those supporters have been present at Kelly's court hearings, and a number of them attended the trial.

Along with the calls for leniency, however, have been indications that the household was out of control. Court documents show that the family's youngest children were increasingly in the care of the oldest, and Frances died while her mother and oldest sister were on a trip to Ireland. In addition, Kelly had lost track of his younger children on previous occasions, the court papers say.

Kelly's lawyers had argued that Frances's death was a tragic accident. They said Kelly had put Frances in the care of his older children that day and presented no witnesses or evidence of their own, saying that prosecutors had not proved that a crime was committed.

But prosecutors said Kelly was responsible for all his children and should have realized something was wrong.

They finished presenting their case yesterday after questioning 12 witnesses over two days. Kelly's defense team rested shortly thereafter.

The relatively short trial focused largely on Kelly's role in leaving Frances in the family's van after he transported other children to and from school.

"This is not a case of leaving a child for a few minutes," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Sandra Sylvester told jurors in her closing argument yesterday. "He never panicked, because he never missed her, for seven hours. . .‚. He had an obligation to find out where she was, to ask where she was, at some point."

Defense lawyer Carroll A. Weimer Jr. told jurors that Kelly concedes he should have asked about Frances during the day, but that such a regret was one of a series of "what-if" questions the family has been asking itself since Frances's death.

Weimer said Kelly had asked his older children to get the younger ones out of the van.

"You are the voice of the community," Weimer told the jurors in his closing argument. "Tell the government that Mr. Kelly should not be prosecuted for this tragic accident."

According to neighbors, who testified yesterday, children had been left in the van on previous occasions. Erin and Amber Beecher, teenage neighbors on Zimbro Avenue in Manassas, said they had talked to Kevin Kelly about that at least three times.

Each time, they knocked on the Kellys' front door, and each time Kelly answered and immediately ran to the car to grab a child out of a car seat.

"I said, this keeps happening every summer. A child gets left in the car," said Erin Beecher, 17, saying that she would hear cries from the van and go to help.

Robin Foster, an expert in pediatric emergency services and child protection, testified yesterday that Frances probably struggled against the heat – fretting, vomiting, pulling at her hair – before succumbing to it. Foster said 21-month-old children require constant supervision and over a seven-hour period probably would need about two meals, several diaper changes and a nap. The girl died of hyperthermia.

Police officers testified that Kelly blamed his older children for leaving Frances in the car, telling one officer that he told his son Anthony, then 17, to take care of her. Kelly and his son were seen by witnesses fixing a fence for a couple of hours during the day, and prosecutors argued that Kelly could not have thought that Anthony was taking care of the girl at that time.

"This child really was neglected," Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert told jurors yesterday. "The mere fact that you have a lot of children has no impact on your responsibility to take care of each one of them. The more children you have, I would submit, the more careful you have to be."