Accessory charges dropped against babysitter

The Soddy-Daisy babysitter facing criminal charges in connection with the 2018 death of a Hixson toddler has fewer charges pending as of Thursday.

“During a motion hearing today special prosecutor Andrew Coyle dropped the accessory-after-the-fact charges against defendant, Brandi Giannunzio,” Jersey Harper-Becket, the paralegal for Giannunzio’s attorney, Daniel J. Turklay, said in a statement Thursday.

Giannunzio was facing two counts of accessory after the fact — a felony that carries a sentence of one to six years in prison and up to $3,000 in fines, according to Tennessee law.

Giannunzio, 30, who is is out on bond, now faces the single charge of making a false report to law enforcement, according to HarperBecket. The felony charge carries a sentence of two to 15 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines, should she be found guilty, according to Tennesse law.

Coyle, who prosecuted the case against Giannunzio’s fiancé, Benjamin Brown, left the Hamilton County District Attorney’s office in May of last year and was appointed special prosecutor in the case against Giannunzio shortly after, due to his familiarity with the case.

Coyle could not be reached for comment.

The development comes months after Giannunzio hired Turklay, who will represent Giannunzio at trial Feb. 20. Turklay is the third attorney to take on Ginnunzio’s case in less than a year.

No further comment was provided by Turklay’s office.

Giannunzio was the babysitter for 2-year-old Annie Shell-Burkett, who died Aug. 9, 2018, after Giannunzio left the toddler with her fiancé while she went to the Do or Dye Hair Salon in Soddy-Daisy for a few hours, according to authorities.

Giannunzio told Hamilton County Emergency Medical Services and Soddy-Daisy investigators she was at the house when Annie hit her head in the bathroom, but surveillance footage showed she was at the hair salon at the time Annie sustained the fatal injuries, according to authorities.

Brown was arrested and charged with murder in the child’s death. In February 2022, after a six-day trial, a jury in February 2022 found Brown guilty of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in Annie’s death. He was ordered to serve two years in prison followed by 11 months and 29 days in a workhouse.