Mother Gets Maximum Sentence in Girl’s Death

Two years after her daughter was found dead in the corner of a cramped bedroom, a 23-year-old Anaheim mother was sentenced to eight years in state prison Friday for neglecting the 13-month-old to the point that the child starved to death.

The death of Samantha Rose Gutierrez has become a rallying point for child-care advocates, who say an overburdened and bureaucratic government agency failed to heed efforts to help the girl.

Orange County’s Social Services Agency, which had been told three times that the child was being abused in the five months before she died, has since announced reforms. City police also are being pushed to revamp the way they handle abuse calls.

Jacquelyn Starr Gutierrez pleaded guilty in December to three counts of child abuse and Friday received the maximum penalty for her crimes. During the hearing, she wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed as Orange County Superior Court Judge Kelly MacEachern chastised her.

“You were her mother. You should have taken care of her,” the judge said. “Whether by neglect or wanton disregard, you caused her death.”

Relatives of Gutierrez, whose three other children have been adopted since Samantha’s death March 26, 2002, declined to comment outside the Fullerton courtroom. A friend was handcuffed in the hallway and taken into custody when he allegedly threatened Deputy Dist. Atty. Howard Gundy after sentencing.

Deputy Public Defender Linda Hewitt had asked the judge to place her client on probation, saying her client’s challenging circumstances merit compassion.

Gutierrez was 16 when her first child was born and the youngest -- the woman’s fourth child -- had been delivered by Cesarean section four weeks before Samantha’s death. The family lived in half of a converted garage, with the parents and two eldest children sharing a bunk bed and the babies in a crib and bassinet.

Samantha’s mother did not deliberately kill her daughter, Hewitt said. The baby did not die of bruises or broken bones, she added, but of malnutrition.

“Her death itself was not planned or sophisticated,” the lawyer said. “It was the very opposite of those things.” Hewitt described the child’s death as “essentially painless.”

Prosecutor Gundy railed at Hewitt’s claim and implored the judge to give Gutierrez the maximum sentence.

“She never felt that baby’s pain,” Gundy said of the mother. “She didn’t feel it then and she doesn’t feel it now. I can’t believe she has the audacity after pleading guilty to these charges to say she didn’t cause the death and she deserves probation.”

During an examination after Samantha’s death, coroners found bruises covering the child’s body and hemorrhaging throughout her head, lungs and stomach.

Eli Home, a nonprofit organization that advocates for abused and neglected children, donated clothing for the funeral.

Lorri Galloway, executive director of Eli Home, said the mother’s sentence is a small victory for advocates who have pushed the system to punish parents who contribute to their child’s death.

“It’s very bittersweet,” Galloway said. “Samantha lived a horrible existence for her one short year, but through the changes her death has prompted, other children will be saved.”

The Social Services Agency announced this week it is implementing an improved child abuse registry that electronically consolidates reports. Although nearly two dozen people from various agencies visited the Gutierrez home, workers never saw the magnitude of the abuse because reports were not recorded in one place, Galloway said.

“That’s the saddest thing of all, that this child fell through the cracks,” she said. “Had this system been in place and those things been done, she would have been removed from the home. This child did not have to die.”

The Social Services Agency also has tried to improve outreach, said spokeswoman Debbie Kroner, by informing community members about what constitutes child abuse and how to report it.

“What happened as a result of Samantha’s case that’s positive is that we’ve really opened up channels of communication to prevent future incidents,” Kroner said.

City officials are also looking to newly hired Police Chief John Welter, who, as executive chief in San Diego, implemented a social services component that other agencies use as a model to reduce domestic violence and child abuse in their communities.

Anaheim Councilman Richard Chavez, a firefighter at the time who was among those answering the 911 call when Samantha died, said he would like to see police officers trained to look for signs of abuse and neglect and a unit formed to provide follow-up reports.

Chavez said he was appalled the day he was at Samantha’s home, when her mother continued chatting with a neighbor after paramedics had declared the baby dead.

“They fall apart every time. There is no worse news than your baby is dead,” he said. “I saw more tears out of her today than the day her baby died.”

Samantha would have turned 3 on Monday.