Mistrial declared in murder case

A mistrial was declared Monday in the case of a 61-year-old woman who was charged with murdering her toddler in Huntington Beach nearly 40 years ago, a case that prosecutors said involved a decades-long coverup as the child’s father and brother futilely searched for answers.

A seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for nearly eight days before informing Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard M. King that they were deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of acquitting Donna Prentice on a second-degree murder charge.

The jury was deadlocked 7 to 5 in favor of guilt on a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Prentice’s first murder trial in 2007 also ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 for conviction.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Yellin, who also prosecuted the first trial, said he plans to seek a third. A hearing is scheduled for Monday to consider dismissing the case or setting dates for a third trial.

Defense attorney Ken Norelli said he does not believe the case should go forward a third time because “the government does not have new evidence that will change the outcome.”

“I believe she is guilty of the crime and I want to hold her responsible for the crime that she committed,” Yellin said. “It’s nothing more than that.”

Yellin argued in court that Prentice either killed her 3-year-old daughter, Michelle Pulsifer, or played a role in her killing. He also argued that she helped bury the body in a canyon in south Orange County.

In 1969, Prentice and her then-boyfriend, James Michael Kent, abruptly left their Huntington Beach home and moved to Illinois, taking their two 6-year-old sons from other marriages with them, but not Michelle.

During the trial, Richard Pulsifer Jr., Michelle’s older brother, who was 6 when she disappeared, told jurors about Michelle’s final moments in the Huntington Beach home. He recalled the girl calling out “Hide me, hide me” to him, just before her mother came and took her away. Pulsifer said it was the last time he saw his sister.

In the decades to come, Yellin argued, Prentice lied to her former husband, son and other family members about Michelle’s whereabouts. He argued that the fact that she went to Illinois with Kent pointed to her guilt in her daughter’s death.

As prosecutors presented Prentice as a calculating woman who covered up the slaying for decades, the defense painted her as a loving mother who was abused by Kent and forced to repeatedly change the story of what happened to her daughter. Norelli told jurors that Kent was the probable killer. Kent had been charged with the girl’s death, but he died in custody of kidney and liver failure at age 63 in 2005.

In a statement taped before he died, Kent denied killing Michelle, saying that the little girl was found lifeless in her bedroom after Prentice came out of the room. He admitted to helping bury the toddler in Williams Canyon. Her body has never been found.

Norelli argued that Kent was manipulative and violent, and that Prentice fell prey to his manipulation when she went with him to Illinois. Norelli said Prentice had nothing to do with her daughter’s disappearance and did not try to find out what happened to Michelle because she was “paralyzed with fear.”

Yellin said a third trial will be challenging because many of the witnesses in the nearly 40-year-old cold case are getting older and their memories are fading.

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my-thuan.tran@latimes.com