Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
5-year sentence for death by water
Girl, 3, drank fatal amount of liquid
Nancy Gayoso stood up before a Broward judge Friday and accepted responsibility for the death of a 3-year-old child left in her care in 2002.
Gayoso, 49, pleaded no contest to a charge of manslaughter of a child. She accepted a five-year prison sentence. And she accepted the commands of the court deputies who handcuffed her, fingerprinted her, and escorted her out of the courtroom to begin her sentence.
But what she did not do prompted prosecutor Chuck Morton and the victim’s mother to ask Broward Circuit Judge Dennis Bailey to throw the book at her — Gayoso never explained how or why little Rosita Gonzalez died.
Morton called it a case of water intoxication. Rosita had been forced to drink too much water in a short amount of time — how much water and how much time remains in question, Morton said, but the effects on Rosita’s little body were unmistakable. Her sodium levels dropped. Her brain swelled. She went into shock. Vital organs shut down. And then she was dead. Investigators estimated between two quarts and a gallon, within less than four hours, a dangerously excessive amount
for a 3-year-old.
“An outside agent was either compelling her to drink that much water or forcing her,” said Morton. “The only person who had care, custody and control of Rosita Gonzalez was Nancy Gayoso.”
Gayoso was allowing Gonzalez’s mother, Carmen Saldarriaga Pinedo, to stay in her Hollywood home rent free, and she watched after Pinedo’s child while Pinedo worked at a restaurant.
At 8:30 a.m. Oct. 14, 2002, the child was healthy and in good spirits, Morton said.
Gayoso gave no reasonable explanation for how Rosita could have consumed enough water to kill her. The child was in a bath for a short time, Gayoso said.
“The bath was not totally full, and the baby was playing in the bathtub,” she told the judge.
Bailey asked whether Gayoso was punishing Rosita for anything. Gayoso said no.
“When did the child drink a gallon of water?” Bailey asked.
“I didn’t see that,” she answered.
Rosita’s mother could not attend Friday’s hearing, but spoke to the judge via speakerphone. “You don’t know the pain I’ve gone through,” she told the judge. “My daughter would be 18 years old now.”
Bailey heard from numerous friends and family members of Gayoso who vouched for her kindness, and defense lawyer Jose Reyes said it should be noted that whatever crime took place was not committed intentionally.
Morton and the judge agreed on that point. Gayoso could have been sentenced to between 11 and 15 years had she taken the case to trial and lost.
“An outside agent was either compelling her to drink that much water or forcing her. The only person who had care, custody and control of Rosita Gonzalez was Nancy Gayoso.” Chuck Morton, prosecutor