Woman who allegedly left boyfriend's child to die in a sweltering car gets off with a $25 fine

On July 22, 2016, Brittany Renee Borgess was supposed to take her boyfriend’s daughter to daycare. However, she left the little girl in the car while she went to work.

Tragically, the little girl died after being left in the locked up car in the sweltering heat. Borgess was put on trial for the child’s death but managed to get off with a fine.

On November 9, Brittany Renee Borgess, 30, was acquitted of the charges she faced in the death of Samaria Motyka, 4. Borgess had been left for 6-and-a-half hours in a sweltering SUV in 2016.

In front of seven jurymen and five jurywomen, Borgess pleaded her case. The jury only deliberated for around three hours before finding her innocent of charges of involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of children, and recklessly endangering.

For more on this story go to our Twitter account @amomama_usa. However, Senior Judge Dudley N. Anderson found her guilty of the summary charge of leaving a child unattended in a car.

For this, the judge fined her $25. Motyka’s family and friends didn’t take the verdict well with some using profanity. This caused the sheriff's deputies to need to escort a number of them from the courtroom.

After the verdict was read, Borgess’ lawyer Peter T. Campana, said justice had been served. The lawyer had asked the jury to base their verdict on the evidence, not their emotions.

He told them, "No matter your verdict, Samaria will not be brought back.” The jurors were tasked with deciding whether leaving the toddler in the SUV was a criminal act or just lapse of memory.

Two years ago, Borgess had taken her son, Isaac, 2, to a daycare just north of Williamsport. However, instead of taking Motyka to her daycare in South Williamsport, she drove straight to work.

She left her car at the rear of a downtown business where there was no shade and the little girl was still buckled into a booster seat in the back seat. Motyka was found unresponsive 61/2 hours later at around 3:30 p.m.

She was on the floor with her head on the front passenger seat and had gotten out of the booster seat. On that day, the temperature had reached 110 degrees.

Borgess got off on the premise that she hadn’t intentionally left the little girl in the car on purpose and driving straight to work was “habit-based.”

On June 21, Nicole Engler, 38, was taken into custody after finding her 21-month-old daughter Remy blue in her car dead. The child was found at around 4.30pm in Roseburg, Oregon.

Her mother had forgotten to drop the toddler off at daycare on her way to work. She was later released on a $50,000 bond raised through donation funds set up since the tragedy.

However, in a county jail, Engler would pull out clumps of her hair and beg to be allowed to kill herself because she was so distraught. Her case was also based on her lack of sleep before the child died.