Police discuss arrest in baby's death

this is a news channel 13 breaking news update good afternoon I'm Faith King this is a news channel 13 Special Report the mother of the baby found dead and SKC after an amber alert yesterday is now charged with manslaughter in the child's death these connec Police Department is giving an update on the case right now let's take you there live we have district attorney Robert Carney 8 Chris trani from the Federal Bureau of Investigation we have assistant special agent in charge Don Zano from New York State Police major Dennis shager and BCI Captain Christopher Gilroy from disconnected County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy John lbrand Lieutenant Milton Johnson K9 administrator Jeff Calder from Sky Fire Department chief down Mareno from New York State DC Forest R Rangers major David pin from the office of fire prevention and control Ranch Chief Bob juel and Deputy State Fire administrator William Davis we also received assistance from the Albany County Sheriff's Office and General Electric security so before we brief on the case I just want to to stress the amount of help that we received from each one of these agencies uh throughout the night and through the morning between the support different canine units drone units New York State Police Aviation um we just received a tremendous outpouring of assistance with this case so I I just want to spend that time just you know say thank you to these agencies for what they've done and now I'll call up Chief Clifford we'll be briefing you on the case thank you lieutenant thank you all for coming uh this afternoon we'll give you a briefing um as the lieutenant had mentioned uh this was a very complicated case uh hence it required many resources so I thank every every one of our partners for being here Halo Brandon was uh reported to us missing yesterday located in the afternoon and subsequently passed away at Ellis Hospital before I begin on behalf of the men and women of the scanty police department and all agencies that participated in the search I'd like to send our condolences is thoughts and prayers to Halo's family on the loss of Halo I know I speak for every first responder on the scene and at the unified Communication Center when I say that yesterday was a difficult day I'm going to go through a timeline of events yesterday this is an ongoing investigation so it's my goal to brief the public on the circumstances that led us to request their assistance at 11:04 p.m. on March 9th the scy county unified community Communication Center received a call from GE security that there was a female trespasser on scene and didn't know how she got there and she claimed to have lost her child responding officers interviewed the female now known to be Persia Nelson and began looking for the child unable to locate the child they requested additional resources to assess where to expand their search it took some time but officers were able to connect an address on Campbell Avenue to the female and this ultimately LED officers to the dead end of 12th Street where they were able to identify where the female went with her baby in a location where she entered the GE campus once that location was established a thorough search was conducted using canines to track drones and Personnel on foot at this point officers were looking for a lost one-year-old child after hours of searching and unable to locate her State Police and state forest rangers were contacted to assist with conducting a grid search on the GE campus as the morning came it was also decided that we could not rule out an abduction or the child being exposed to some other dangerous situation so we decided to put out an amber alert at 12:30 p.m. one of the search teams on the GE campus found Hal inside a utility tunnel structure located on the GE campus Medics were requested and she was brought to Ellis Hospital by members of the scanty fire department and Mohawk Ambulance where life-saving efforts were performed but unfortunately she never regained her vitals and was declared deceased at 1:24 p.m. perser Nelson was charged last evening with one count of manslaughter an additional charge of Murder in the second degree the caved indifference is being filed right now and I'll turn it over to our district attorney Robert Carney who will discuss the Char charges filed thank you Chief um thank you for coming it's nice to see you here I'm sorry it's under such profoundly sad circumstances I must say at the outset of my remarks what I'm required to say every time we do something like this which is these are charges filed against Miss Nelson at this time they are only accusations she is entitled to the presumption of innocence and all of her other rights including the right ultimately to a fair trial before her peers first let me tell you what happened in court this morning um judge fatico arraigned Miss Nelson she was held on $500,000 Cash 1 million secured Bond or 5 million partially secured judge foto adjourned the case to Thursday at 1:30 for a um preliminary hearing um my assistant district attorney Mike nobl handled the arraignment he's present here today and as previously indicated my deputy chief assistant district attorney chief of the Homicide Bureau Christina tronti was involved in this case and she went to the scene yesterday and spent some time being briefed by the investigators this morning an autopsy was conducted by Dr Ang at ell's hospital based upon his findings that this child died of exposure and hypothermia the decision was made to file additional charges um she was the baby was dropped into this utility tunnel from a height of about 8 feet to the bottom of the tunnel where there was standing water uh the baby did not drown the baby was in the water which came up to her chest and around her head but not her face um her mother was found in a GE security building which was heated um So based upon the fact that these additional charge is being filed I doubt whether the preliminary hearing will occur on Thursday that will give us a little more time but we will be proceeding to Grand Jury expeditiously on this case the charge the additional charge that is filed is a charge of depraved murder violation of section 12525 subdivision one of the penal is that subdivision four subdivision four of the pen law which is a branch of depraved murder depraved mind murder that um requires us to prove under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life and being 18 years old or older or more um recklessly engaged in conduct which creates a grave risk of serious physical injury or death to another person less than 11 years old and thereby causes the death of that person so that's the theory that is now being um being uh charged or will be soon lodged against her and we will seek to present that as well as the prior uh charges to a grand jury as I said within the near future so that's my my general comments Chief I'll turn it back to you for a Q&A yeah we'll open up the questions for this time um best we can was the mother inated um she didn't know where she was I'll leave it at that you talk about the between Sy maybe you talk about that sure first your name sir Dennis shager tro Commander TR G so there's a lot of criteria that has to be met before an amber alert could be um issued and in this case as was mentioned earlier uh when we became aware this possibly could be a abduction and just not a lost child that's when a determination was made to send the Amber Alert out now as far as the Amber Alert going out I read something here so I don't mess it up but it's uh technology issues with the alert that went out yesterday so the initial alert when it was going to be sent should have gone out at 10:10 that alert went to media and to other law enforcement agencies the alert going to the public didn't go out until 11:15 a.m. because of some technology issues that an error in a system and the information from the original entry wasn't transcribed to go out to the public notification so I've been advised at the New York alert system and a national Center for missing and exploited children is ex is examining the error and working on a solution right now does that answer your question is there any indication that the lag in the Amber caused any difficulties in uh resolving this case and recovering the body of the young girl no not at all just clarify the additional Char that will be it's a depraved murder charge the general charge of depraved murder is acting under circumstances evincing depraved indifference to human life recklessly engag in conduct which creates a grave risk of death and death results but the subdivision having to do with the child says the grave risk doesn't have to be of death we create a grave risk of either serious physical injury or death and death results and it's a child less than 11 and you're an adult more than 18 does Miss Nelson have other children and who are they custody uh it's my understanding that she has one other child in the custody of uh the child's biological father uh someone who claims to be a relative of the biological father has been speaking to multi multiple media Outlets um claiming that there's been a fight for custody over Halo Brandon can you comment on that I cannot does Miss Nelson have any prior arrest records is that something we could comment on did she have legal custody of payo at the time I have no reason to believe that she didn't she do you know what time you first contact the State Police about activating the Amber Alert System you know when that was um I really don't remember the exact time I know it was it was in the morning that I was in contact with the major and we we had been discussing it have there been issues with this errors with the system before is it something you this is you've seen for the first time so my know the first time did she go to GD security for help or did they discover her in that shed it's my understanding that they discovered her in their in their patrols and what's the significance let me let me just step for second she wasn't in a in in a in a sh the mother was not in a shed the mother was in a heated building this utility enclosure with the 8 foot drop was where this baby was dropped or placed or hidden out in the elements yes uh the but the mother was not in the elements no uh the what's the significance of the addressed Campbell Avenue in 12th Street was she uh was at her house was she at a party there what was that address that's the location that we were able to determine that she originated from before she walked down to the campus does the mother and child have a residence in the community live somewhere they do live in the city sir between that address and the g campus there's a significant Cliff sort of drop off do you know how the mother and her child got from that address to the G campus not not really we we can assume but we don't know how she got down there how long has she lived in SK and who was she staying I don't have an answer for that but she have a permanent address in the city we were told that she might be in self shelter situation something of that I don't know the answer that either were told in court this morning the judge was told in court this morning that she moved to skincity to be with a boyfriend has that boyfriend's been interviewed by police at this time that's not something that we can comment with on right now can you describe more about how baby was found by the how how the baby was found um I I really don't know I I know that they were able to locate her but I don't know the the specifics behind that it was Patrol officers from the Department they found her right it it was it it was a members of our SWAT team that our Patrol officers that located her um but I don't know the specifics about you know other than they saw her I know it's still early in this investigation but have we determined a possible motive here no Chief you spent a lot of time and all the crews did looking for this child in very bad weather can you just talk it all about the emotional toll from all the officers that were involved looking for her for so long with obviously the clock it's ticking yeah I mean I would think it's fair to say that um you know everybody uh both scany police officers and all of our partner agencies including our unified Communication Center everybody's shaken by this uh everybody can relate to a one-year-old child being helpless um and at the time uh the adrenaline's rushing that you know were MO motivated to find her but you know after the the reality sets in um it's uh it's it's definitely taking a toll on everybody um but you we're all working through it we're checking in on each other and uh you know it's certainly a sad day for sure Chief just to go back to your timeline there's a posting uh a Facebook posting from Saturday around 8:16 p.m. it's uh to an account that I believe is linked to Persia and it says um drunk ASF drunk as [ __ ] don't play with me right now L MF a o o do we know if I don't know if you're aware of this posting but do we know where the child was was she with her mother at that time as I mentioned earlier this is an active investigation so that's uh you know something that really just don't want to comment on at this time so at this point is it unclear why she went from that C Avenue address on cus again at act this is ongoing investigation not something we can comment on at this time so respectfully we do have to kind of wrap up questions we're just gonna get one one or two more and then we'll in regards to Miss Nelson are there any previous police reports of child abuse or neglect against her that's Again part of our ongoing investigation we're looking into right now do you expect to bring charges against anyone else in this case outside I can't I really can't answer that right now it depends on where the investigation goes thank you guys very much if you are just joining us now we just finished wrapping up um a news conference from the skty police department as they detailed the finding of 10-month-old Halo Branton we all got that Amber Alert on Sunday um every time we get an amber alert all of our hearts drop and just breaking details coming in um of how Halo Bron was found um at 11:04 p.m. on Saturday night that's when GE workers notified police of a female trespasser that female trespasser was Persia Nelson after further investigation a search started for baby Halo Sunday morning officials put out that Amber Alert by 12:30 p.m. a GE worker found Halo she was taken to Ellis Hospital and that's where she died that leads us to this morning this morning 24-year-old Nelson Halo's mother was arraigned on a second degree manslaughter charge in SKC City Court you can see her there on your screen Bell was set at $500,000 now Chief um police chief Eric Clifford with SKC Police Department called this a complicated case um he talked about how a handful of agencies assisted in this case he called it a difficult case and he did add that it's taken an emotional toll on everyone that was was a part of this case um it's taken an emotional toll for our viewers um for us here at News Channel 13 as we learned a 10-month-old baby um has died court documents detail Nelson dro the baby down a 10 foot deep pipe access area that's what court documents are calling it at ge's Main plant that's where she was found um in that pipe it was filled with water and mud and we do know um knew this afternoon an autopsy showed that Haley Halo Branton died from exposure to hypothermia because it was mud and water at the bottom of that tunnel and it came up to her chest we'll have updated developments on um this case both on air and online throughout the day our storter will provide more for us starting live at 4 let's send it back to our regular schedule programming