HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (Scripps News Nashville) — How could a mother drown her own child?
Brandi Elliott charged with murder after drowning 7-year-old daughter, Piper, in a creek. (Sumner County Jail via Scripps News Nashville)
Brandi Elliott will somehow have to explain that to a jury…or she could face the death penalty.
Elliott may have no choice but to draw from the tragic case of Lindsey Lowe, another Sumner County mother who killed her children.
It’s almost eerie something like this has happened before in Sumner County. Lowe smothered her newborn twins.
Now, more than a decade later, Elliott is charged in the murder of her 7-year-old daughter.
In 2013, Lowe was sentenced to life in prison — this after confessing to police she smothered her newborns to death.
This past Saturday, Elliott admitted to Hendersonville police that she held her daughter Piper’s head underwater and the child later died at the hospital.
She is charged with first-degree murder.
“The jury will want somebody to be responsible for the death of this child,” said Scripps News Nashville’s legal analyst Nick Leonardo. He added that if the case goes to trial, Elliott will face the same challenge Lowe did with the jury.
“Clearly an individual charged with killing their own child will have mental health issues. The question is does that rise to the level of providing a defense?” he said.
Like Lowe, Elliott’s only defense may be to argue diminished capacity, that she was out of her head when committing the crime.
She alluded to mental illness during her first court appearance this week.
“When my daughter was two I kind of lost it like I did this time and I have had depression and they gave me medicine for it,” said Elliott.
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That was five years ago, but Elliott also told the judge she was not currently under the care of a mental health professional.
Friends say she seemed like a loving mother and can’t explain why she would hurt her daughter.
“I really don’t know. I don’t understand. I don’t understand,” said DeAnna Sartain.
Lowe’s attorneys argued diminished capacity at trial and the jury returned a guilty verdict after only a few hours of deliberation.
Yet another Sumner County jury may now hear the same defense. It remains to be seen if they’ll reach a different verdict.
Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in Lowe’s case. They have yet to decide if they will for Elliott.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Nashville, an E.W. Scripps Company.
