The mother of Marchella Pierce—the severely malnourished 4-year-old girl who was found dead in her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment with bruises all over her body—was found guilty of murder last month. 32-year-old Carlotta Brett-Pierce has now been sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in prison for beating, starving and drugging her daughter to death. And the judge blasted her for not accepting responsibility for the death, calling her a "self-centered, volatile and belligerent woman."
Before sentencing, Brett-Pierce defiantly told the judge: "I do not accept responsibility for my daughter's death. I did not kill her—this is a tragedy." She blamed jurors, the press and her own lawyer, and only said she was "not perfect." Marchella weighed just 18.9 pounds when she died in September 2010; Marcella, who was born premature and with severe medical problems, had also been drugged (she had 60 adult doses of Claritin and 30 doses of Benadryl in her system) and beaten by her mom.
Marchella Pierce
Judge Patricia DiMango was disgusted: "What kind of a person could do this to a child, let alone her own child?" DiMango said. She added that Brett-Pierce continued to abuse Marcella after death by calling her "that bitch" in conversations from Rikers Island. "Children do matter in society, and they do have a voice, even in death," DiMango said. Brett-Pierce was ultimately found guilty of murder, assault, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child. Marchella's grandmother Loretta Brett was also convicted of manslaughter, and will be sentenced today.
Prosecutors revealed one other devastating detail: Marchella's brother, the 6-year-old who testified against his mother, was so traumatized at seeing his sister starved, he brought food for her to her funeral.
