Bond granted for woman accused of killing baby

BEDFORD — A judge granted bond Tuesday for a Bedford woman accused of the September 2008 slaying of her eight-month-old daughter.

By: Chris Dumond | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: October 20, 2009

UPDATED 9:15 p.m.BEDFORD — A judge granted bond Tuesday for a Bedford woman accused of the September 2008 slaying of her eight-month-old daughter.

Bedford Circuit Court Judge James Updike set bond at $15,000 cash or $30,000 secured with real estate for 25-year-old Cecilia Burnette.

Officials at the Blue Ridge Regional Jail in Bedford said Burnette is no longer in their custody as of 9:15 p.m.

Burnette is charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse. She was not charged until being indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 2. Bedford Police Chief Jim Day said earlier that delay was due to a complicated autopsy and uncooperative witnesses.

Salem-based attorney and Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith appeared in court Tuesday as Burnette’s lawyer.

Griffith asked Updike for a $10,000 bond, noting that Burnette has known she was a suspect in the girl’s death for more than a year, but has not attempted to escape.

“This is a shaken-baby case,” Griffith said. “The consequences will scar her life no matter what the outcome of these charges.”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Randy Krantz did not ask the court to hold Burnette without bond and noted she has made herself available to investigators over the course of the year.

However, Krantz pointed out to the judge, Burnette admitted during testimony Tuesday that she lied about living with her boyfriend at the time of the baby’s death to hide that information from the girl’s biological father. She also admitted to lying about taking a narcotic drug in order to hide her anxiety before a police-administered lie-detector test.

Krantz said the baby’s fatal injuries were not from shaking, but from several blunt-force trauma injuries over a course of time. Burnette admitted to investigators the girl suffered four or five accidental blows to her head while she was caring for the baby, he said.

While she claimed they were accidental, he said, they match the injuries documented in the autopsy.

She also is facing a felony charge of distributing hydrocodone, the narcotic painkiller Krantz said she took before the lie-detector test.

Burnette is tentatively scheduled to be tried on Jan. 12. Griffith said that is likely to change due to his schedule.

The General Assembly convenes on Jan. 13. Griffith, a Republican, is a member of the House of Delegates Courts of Justice committee and is the chairman of the criminal law subcommittee. David Albo, the co-founder of the firm for which Griffith works, is a Republican delegate from Fairfax County and the chairman of the Courts of Justice Committee.