JULIE CIRELLA - 8 yo (7/2011) Charged: Mother-Veronica Cirella - Plainview NY

Plainview Woman Charged In Connection With 8-Year-Old Daughter’s Death

July 24, 2011 9:10 AM



Veronica Cirella (R) and her daughter Julie (credit: CBS 2)

PLAINVIEW, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – A disabled 8-year-old girl is dead after a possible murder-suicide attempt. Her mother is in the hospital, facing criminal charges in the girl’s death.

Neighbors describe 30-year-old Veronica Cirella as attentive and loving to her 8-year-old daughter, Julie. But police say Saturday morning, both mother and daughter were discovered on the floor of their Plainview home unconscious by the girl’s grandmother.

Julie was dead. Her mother survived what police say may have been a suicide attempt. She was found with a cord around her neck.

“The grandchild could not be revived, however that child’s mother was brought to Nassau County Medical Center where we understand she is alive and conscious,” said Kevin Smith with Nassau County police.

The girl’s death came on the same day she was preparing to participate in a relative’s wedding as a flower girl. Her wheelchair had been decorated with flowers.

Relatives were seen rushing to the home to try to find out what happened.

The mother is now charged with second degree manslaughter, but police have offered no reason why.

“It appears right now that we have an undetermined homicide,” said Smith. “We don’t know what caused the death of the 8-year-old child. There are no outward signs of violence or any trauma to that child. So it’s still very much under investigation.

“That breaks my heart,” said neighbor Tricia Kane. ”It’s shocking something like this would happen in this area or just in general.”

Detectives are investigating the incident as a possible murder-suicide attempt. Family members say Julie had cerebral palsy and moved around in a wheelchair.

Police say Cirella will be arraigned at her bedside.

M&M's that contained traces of peanuts are at the center of the
case against a Long Island woman who now finds herself charged with
second-degree murder in the death of her disabled and allergic
8-year-old daughter.
Veronica Cirella, 31, of Plainview, N.Y., pleaded not guilty Wednesday and was ordered held
without bail in the July 23, 2011 death of her daughter, Julie, who was
found hours before she was set to be a flower girl in a cousin's wedding.
District Attorney Kathleen Rice released a
statement saying the grand jury heard from Cirella and several witnesses
before returning the indictment on the second-degree murder charge.
"Every child's death arouses strong emotions, but prosecutors must evaluate
the evidence objectively, and regardless of how difficult the defendant
perceived her circumstances to be, taking her daughter's life was unjustified," Rice said.
Cirella had previously been charged with manslaughter in the case.
Attorney William Keahon implored the Nassau County judge to release his client
on bail, contending an autopsy has failed to determine a cause of death.
But the judge cited Cirella's suicide attempt the day her daughter died
and the fact that Cirella is now facing a potential life sentence as
reasons to hold her in custody until her trial.
"I've never seen an indictment for murder, intentional murder, where the
medical examiner cannot even give a causation of death, nor can he even
say it's a homicide. It's bizarre," Keahon told reporters outside the Mineola courthouse.
After Cirella's arrest last summer,
Assistant District Attorney Zeena Abdi said that Julie, who was
diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant and was confined to a
wheelchair, had suffered an allergic reaction to something she was fed.
"There was a certain protocol that should have been followed as far as giving
care for the allergy that she did not take," the prosecutor said at the time.
After discovering Julie had died, Cirella told
police that she attempted suicide by taking both injections of insulin
and drinking the medication, as well as taking an unknown quantity of
painkillers. She also told police she attempted to strangle herself with
an electrical cord. Cirella and her daughter were found by Cirella's
mother-in-law, Dolores Cirella, who also lived in the Plainview home,
when she checked on their preparations for the wedding later that afternoon.
A suicide note written by Cirella, found in
court documents, indicates that the mother admitted feeding M&Ms to
her daughter the night before she died as a special treat for her
participation in the wedding the following day.
She says in the suicide note that when she realized the child had eaten a
product containing peanuts, which she read on the candy's label, she
administered liquid Benadryl to counter the effects. She said the two
eventually went to sleep and she found the child dead early the following morning.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57409529-504083/m-ms-key-to-murder-case-against-mom-whose-allergic-daughter-died/