Former daycare owner sentenced to over 20 years in prison for choking death of infant
A former Georgetown daycare owner has been sentenced to more than 20-years in prison.
Holly Harrison had entered a no contest plea to felony charges in connection with the death of a 5-month-old baby under her care. Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick says the family is happy that justice is served, but there will always be something that haunts them.
“Not knowing what happened in that time period I think is going to haunt everyone in this case."
Two years ago Holly Harrison was running a daycare. She claimed she found Brody Havins his crib unresponsive because he choked on a small hand mitten. Brody was just 5 months old.
"The tragic part of the job we do is there is no way to fix what happened before all we can do is get some measure of justice now and hopefully send a measure to other daycare providers that might be in a similar situation to don't make the wrong choice,” Dick adds.
But a medical examiner testified Wednesday, the mitten was too large to have been entered in Brody’s airway. Saying, it’s possible he suffocated while on a couch or a bed.
Detectives also found out Harrison made several other calls before she dialed 911 for help to cover it up. "I think that's what makes this case even worse is that Brody's family will never know what really happened in that 31 time period of where her phone went silent at 10:31,” Dick says.
Judge Rick Kennon sentenced Harrison to 20 years in prison for injury to a child and 2 years for tampering. She was facing a possible sentence of up to 30 years. FOX 7 learned while the judge was working on the sentencing, state law has already been changed by this case with the help of another Williamson county judge.
"In Texas there are 254 Counties and we are almost 30 million people strong, through this horrible tragedy in Williamson County with the loss of Brody, we are going to make Texas a little better, and a little more palatable, when our Texans are going through these difficult times, most Texans will never know the story about what happened here, but they are going to have a right and a privilege because of some pain and severe suffering that occurred here locally and I'm grateful to the Havins family for being so understanding and so compassionate during the darkest days of their life."
This coming from Bill Gravell, Williamson County Justice of Peace.
Brodie's father David says Judge Gravel intervened when the hospital initially refused to allow him to see his son's body. Because of this and a similar incident in San Antonio, Gravell and other judges in Texas were instrumental in pushing through SB 239, which allows parents to see their children before an autopsy is performed.