Forensicwx
Final Roll Call 4153. STLCO 10-42 10/13 @ 1519
A 19th District Court jury decided on a 50-year sentence Tuesday afternoon for a former Waco daycare owner found guilty of murder last week in the death of an infant in her care who died of an antihistamine overdose.
Marian Fraser, 51, must serve half the sentence before she’s eligible for parole.
Jurors took about two and a half hours to reach the punishment decision.
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Fraser was convicted of murder last week in the March 4, 2013 death of four-month-old Clara Marguerite Felton, daughter of Lauren and Perry Felton, who died at a local hospital after prosecutors say she was given a lethal dose of an over-the-counter antihistamine so she would sleep at naptime.
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Fraser was indicted for murder, injury to a child causing serious bodily injury and 13 counts of endangering a child, but prosecutors dropped all but the murder charge at the end of the week-long trial.
The jury deliberated about four hours before returning the guilty verdict on Friday.
The trial immediately went into the punishment phase, but State District Judge Ralph Strother later recessed the proceedings.....
Fraser took the stand on Thursday at the end of the defense case-in-chief and said she never gave antihistamines to any of the children in her care.
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Investigators say the girl was fed a bottle at around 11:30 a.m. on the day she died and was put in a crib for a nap between noon and 12:30 p.m., an arrest warrant affidavit said.
She was found unresponsive at around 2:50 p.m., the affidavit said.
A medical examiner told investigators that the infant "had to have been given the diphenhydramine (the generic name for the over-the-counter-drug Benadryl) while in the care of the daycare she was attending" or the effects would have occurred earlier, the affidavit said.
Fraser told an investigator she would have managed and administered any medication that a parent brought to the daycare, the affidavit said, but the infant's parents told the investigator they had never given their daughter diphenhydramine or any product that contains it.
After the girl's death, the parents of the 10 infants had hair samples tested for diphenhydramine, a source close to the investigation said....
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