A Stearns County judge this week sentenced a central Minnesota woman to nearly 22 years in prison for silencing the alarm on an oxygen-monitoring device and allowing her severely disabled child to die.
Stearns County mom gets 22 years in prison for silencing child’s oxygen alarm
Elise C. Nelson of Paynesville was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Kylie, in 2020.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 19, 2024 at 8:34PM
Elise C. Nelson, 39, was charged with two felony counts in Stearns County District Court following the June 2020 death of 13-year-old Kylie Larson at their home in Paynesville.
Court documents state Nelson was the sole caretaker of Kylie during a weekend in June 2020 and that Nelson was trained to feed and medicate Kylie, as well as suction her tracheostomy as needed.
In court documents, Nelson said she was struggling with depression and admitted to going to the liquor store to buy a 1.75-liter bottle of vodka. She “drank to the point that she blacked out and does not remember what happened for long time periods,” documents state.
The complaint against Nelson states that alarms on Kylie’s pulse oximeter — a device that clips to a finger and assesses breathing by measuring oxygen saturation — started going off on June 20. Court documents state Nelson silenced the alarms multiple times and eventually took the device off; Nelson then called 911 about seven hours after the machine last recorded a pulse.
Kylie had medical problems including chronic respiratory failure and severe developmental delay from a loss of oxygen at birth. But she “enjoyed being outside and moving around, whether it be spinning around in her chair, going for walks with friends and family, or traveling to new places,” her obituary reads.
Nelson pleaded guilty to one felony count of second-degree murder in October 2023 as part of a plea agreement that dismissed one felony count of second-degree manslaughter. She entered a Norgaard plea, allowing her to claim she cannot recall committing the crime but believes there is substantial evidence she would be found guilty at a trial.
In January, Nelson made a motion to withdraw her guilty plea, saying she felt coerced by her previous attorney into signing the document. The state argued her plea was voluntary and informed, and Stearns County Judge Heidi Schultz denied the motion.
On Monday, Schultz sentenced Nelson to 261 months in prison and ordered her to pay $12,600 in restitution to a victim.
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