Day care owner gets prison time over infant’s death
A 7-week-old girl died under care of Mitchell in August 2017
A 7-week-old girl, Savaiyah Reid, died from a severe beating at a home day care in August 2017.
It’s unclear if Claudette Mitchell, the owner of Who’s Loving You at 7815 W. Villard Ave., inflicted the deadly trauma or was just unwilling to say who did, or really doesn’t know. She’s going to prison for 3 1/2 years regardless.
“This case is incredibly difficult because so many questions are left unanswered,” said Deputy District Attorney Matthew Torbenson, “because of Claudette Mitchell.”
Originally charged with first-degree reckless homicide, Mitchell, 38, pleaded guilty in September to neglecting a child, resulting in death.
In a long, tearful statement to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner and Savaiyah’s family, Mitchell said she did not cause the infant’s injuries, but does feel responsible.
“I can’t express how sad I am for this tragedy,” she said.
Police were called to Mitchell’s home shortly after 3 p.m. Aug. 22, 2017. Mitchell said the child had been well just a few minutes earlier. Emergency medical personnel provided life-saving measures but Savaiyah never responded and was pronounced dead at 3:50 p.m.
Mitchell told police she had put the infant down for a nap about 1:45 p.m. and when she went to check on her about 3 p.m., she was unresponsive and had scratches and blood on her face.
Mitchell’s daughter came to the home about 10 a.m. but was napping upstairs until she was awakened by other children at 3 p.m., saying her mother needed her.
She told police she went downstairs and found her mother crying and Savaiyah on the changing table. She started to call 911 but said her mother took the phone to talk with the dispatcher.
Two autopsies concluded the cause of death was homicide from at least three blows to the child’s head, one with enough velocity to cause optic nerve hemorrhaging.
Torbenson said it is extremely uncommon, though possible, that a child older than 6 could inflict such injury. He said the child’s skull “was shattered like a piece of glass.”
But that’s exactly what Michael F. Hart, Mitchell’s attorney, suggested happened.
“Yes, the autopsies say Savaiyah was killed,” Hart said. “But the person who caused the death is still out there. Why haven’t we turned over every stone to find out how it happened?”
Hart noted that Mitchell has no criminal record, raised five foster children and adopted four of them, and had been a licensed day care professional for 17 years.
He said he understood why Savaiyah’s family would want a long prison term but that isn’t the law, or helpful.
Hart suggested probation, perhaps with a year of condition time in the House of Correction, or, if Wagner felt prison was required, no more than 17 months of incarceration.
“This was not habitual abuse or neglect or longterm, deliberate indifference,” Hart said. “This was a lightning strike on one day I’m not sure was foreseeable.”
Wagner seemed to believe Mitchell did hurt Savaiyah, saying, “I guess we really don’t know who did it,” but said she is responsible for the child’s death on her watch, and that a prison term was needed to send a strong message to other day care providers to remain more vigilant about their charges.
While she had no criminal record, Mitchell did have a history of license violations at her day care, often for exceeding her limit of eight children, and no more than three under age 3.
Torbenson said there were at least 11 children there the day Savaiyah died. A 10-year-old girl told investigators she tried to comfort the infant at some point and held her.
That girl and another said Mitchell was on the computer for part of the day.
While Mitchell initially implicated — or potentially implicated — her daughter, who was arrested, Torbenson said the girl gave consistent statements that she had come home sick from school about 10 a.m. and stayed in her upstairs bedroom until her mother found Savaiyah unresponsive about 3 p.m.
The packed courtroom — with supporters on both sides — erupted in violence after the hearing, and both Savaiyah’s father and grandfather wound up arrested, though people with Mitchell’s supporters appeared to start the confrontation.
The child’s father, Phillip Reid, earlier had told Wagner how devastated he’s been by the loss, how the death has driven a wedge between him and the victim’s mother, and how he still falls to his knees and cries when he gets home from work and is reminded Savaiyah’s not there.
In asking for a long prison term for Mitchell, Reid said, “I want her to never feel the small warm hands on her back from the hug of a child.”