'You can cry all you want': Judge not swayed by mom's tears after she dumped baby down drainage pipe, and stood there for nearly 30 minutes watching her freeze

A 26-year-old New York parent is headed to situation for decades — if not the remainder of her beingness — aft she dumped her 11-month-old girl down a 10-foot drainage pipe and stood determination for astir 30 minutes watching her die.

Persia Nelson was convicted of second-degree execution by a assemblage successful October successful the decease of Halo Branton. On Monday, a justice sentenced her to 25 years to beingness down bars.

Halo died of hypothermia aft authorities discovered her assemblage successful a tube connected the General Electric field successful Schenectady connected March 10, 2024. Halo was the taxable of an Amber Alert issued the time earlier she was found.

Prosecutors laid retired the atrocious circumstances of the lawsuit astatine sentencing.

"She didn't conscionable driblet the babe successful the hole," Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante told the judge, according to a courtroom study from local CBS affiliate WRGB. "She stayed determination for 28 minutes after, arsenic Halo cried herself to death. And she did thing during those 28 minutes."

Nelson made a tearful apology to everyone progressive successful the case, including her daughter.

"I'm atrocious I wasn't being a amended parent to you," she said.

The justice was unsympathetic.

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"You tin outcry each you want, but I cognize you're astute capable to cognize what you've got coming successful this case," Judge Matthew Sypniewski told Nelson, per WRGB.

"This is not a tragic accident," the justice besides said. "Absolutely not."

"I heard a lot, a batch of 'sorries,'" Sypniewski continued. "I didn't perceive 'I'm atrocious for murdering my baby.' You'll beryllium saying that 1 day. In astir 25 years, erstwhile you're earlier the parole board, I stake you'll beryllium saying it then, due to the fact that you're going to privation to get out."

As Law&Crime previously reported, authorities from Schenectady police, New York authorities constabulary and the FBI, among others, searched the country earlier they recovered the miss connected GE's campus. Paramedics rushed Halo to the hospital, wherever doctors pronounced her dead, Schenectady constabulary Lt. Ryan Macherone told reporters.

A transgression ailment obtained by Law&Crime said the miss died aft Nelson dropped her down a 10-foot-deep "pipe entree area" filled with h2o and mud astatine the bottom, which was located connected GE's campus, astir 3 miles from wherever Halo was reported missing.

Cops took Nelson into custody.

WRGB posted a video connected YouTube of her arraignment. A authoritative with the Schenectady County District Attorney's Office said Nelson dumped the babe down the tube entree country and "left the kid determination to fundamentally die."

A relative of the girl's begetter told the Albany Times-Union her household is devastated. The begetter had been warring for custody, the relative said.

"She was beautiful, she was charming, she was precise intelligent," she told the newspaper. "She looked conscionable similar her father."

Macherone declined to accidental who reported the miss missing. New York authorities police, erstwhile announcing the Amber Alert, said Halo was "taken nether circumstances that pb constabulary to judge that they are successful imminent information of superior harm and/or death." The bureau primitively said the miss was recovered harmless and unharmed aft canceling the alert. However, it aboriginal edited its posts connected societal media to accidental "Halo has been located."