MOTHER ADMITS GUILT IN DEATH OF BOY, 5

Author: MATT GRYTA - News Staff Reporter

Jessica Vitale-Elgie, a suspended Buffalo teacher, pleaded guilty today to a criminally negligent homicide charge in the death of her young son, who had been adopted from an orphanage in Vietnam.

Vitale-Elgie, 38, pleaded guilty as charged as a nonjury trial was about to begin before State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang.

Five-year-old Casey "C.J." Elgie died Sept. 1, 2000, after swallowing detergent solution the day before in the family's home on Mahogany Drive in Amherst.

Vitale-Elgie, who now lives in Kenmore, admitted failing to seek immediate medical aid for her son after he became violently ill, but she did not further describe the incident.

Wolfgang agreed to consider a non-jail sentence after the Erie County Probation Department reviews the case. The judge said that if she sends Vitale-Elgie to jail, she would cap the term at "no more than one year," to be served locally.

The judge accepted the plea after prosecutor Kenneth Forrest Case said he had extensive discussions with Vitale-Elgie's relatives most affected by the boy's death and all indicated they were satisfied that she has belatedly "accepted responsibility."

The prosecutor said the plea would spare the only eyewitness, the boy's sister Marisa, now 8, "the trauma of testimony in court."

The prosecutor said that as a result of the Family Court proceedings in the case, Vitale-Elgie and her husband, William, have received professional counseling and treatment and her "reunification" with their other children, their adopted daughter and two twin boys of their own, is "imminent."

Vitale-Elgie and her husband were found guilty during Family Court proceeds of "neglectful conduct" in the boy's death.

Vitale-Elgie, whose husband was not criminally charged in the case, acknowledged leaving the boy to suffer for hours before he was taken to Children's Hospital, where he died.

Vitale-Elgie's lawyers, Michael S. Taheri and Peter J. Todaro Jr., said their client wanted to plead guilty and acknowledge her responsibility for the boy's death.

Taheri called the death "a terrible, terrible event" for Vitale-Elgie and said she now wants to "get it behind her and move forward."

The judge allowed Vitale-Elgie to remain free on previously posted bail pending her Feb. 6 sentencing.

An Erie County grand jury reviewed the case last year after Family Court proceedings.

After the boy's death, it was determined that he has swallowed up to three cups of some type of detergent solution after an incident involving his soiling his clothes.

While the boy's death initially was determined to be accidental, about 13 months later a medical examiner reclassified it as a homicide, and a grand jury probe was launched. Death was linked to hypernatremia -- an abnormally low concentration of sodium in the blood -- and aspiration pneumonia.

According to police and court records, Vitale-Elgie forced Casey to wash his clothes in a bucket of detergent and to swallow three cups of a detergent solution.

He vomited and became sick after Vitale-Elgie forced him to continually recite the alphabet and numbers while the rest of the family was eating dinner, according to authorities.

e-mail: mgryta@buffnews.com