AUBURN – A local man charged with murder in connection with the death of an 8-month-old baby girl pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped a murder indictment against 24-year-old Todd Gamache, who was expected to go to trial this spring. Sentencing is scheduled for April 30. He will be held without bail until then, a judge said.
Dressed in a blue jail suit over a white, long-sleeved T-shirt, Gamache stood in Androscoggin County Superior Court while Justice Thomas Delahanty II explained that the defendant could have maintained his innocence and taken his chances at trial.
Gamache said he understood. Then he waived his right to a trial.
“Do you think this is the best thing to do at this time?” Delahanty asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gamache said.
When asked for his plea to causing the baby’s death by reckless or criminally negligent conduct, Gamache first answered, “No contest.”
Delahanty called a quick conference with attorneys in the case. When asked again, Gamache answered, “Guilty.”
Delahanty explained afterward that he generally doesn’t accept no-contest pleas to such serious charges.
Deputy Attorney General William Stokes outlined the case the state would have presented against Gamache had he opted for a trial.
Stokes said day care providers for 8-month-old Emmy-Leigh Cole would have testified that they noticed bruising on the baby’s toes and fingertips.
They urged the baby’s mother, Libby St. Pierre, to take the girl to a doctor.
Witnesses would have testified that on March 22 last year, St. Pierre picked up her baby from day care and took her to a local school. St. Pierre called Gamache, who had been living at her Broad Street apartment for about six months, and asked him to come get the baby and take her back to the apartment.
Gamache did that. Later that night, when St. Pierre and one of her daughters arrived home, Gamache told her to call 911 because something was wrong with the baby, Stokes said.
Stokes said witnesses would have testified that Gamache’s account of what happened during the roughly 45 minutes he was alone at the apartment with the baby changed as he retold his story. He told police that he had dropped the baby in the bathtub, hit her head against a wall in the stairwell then dropped her on the living room floor, Stokes said.
She was unconscious when she was rushed to a local hospital and died two days after she was taken off life support.
David Van Dyke, Gamache’s attorney, was seeking bail for his client pending sentencing.
Delahanty rejected the request, citing Gamache’s history of bail violations.
St. Pierre, sitting in the front row of the spectators section in the courtroom, covered her face with her hands during the court proceeding. When Delahanty denied Gamache bail, she and supporters sitting with her erupted with smiles and nods of their heads.
Manslaughter is punishable by up to 30 years in prison; prosecutors agreed to ask for no more than 20 years in exchange for the plea.
Gamache can argue for a lesser sentence. The judge can set whatever sentence he wishes within the 20-year range, and Gamache would have no right to appeal.
If the judge were to impose a longer sentence than 20 years, Gamache could withdraw his plea and go to trial on the murder charge.
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