N.H. woman convicted of child endangerment Mom failed to protect toddler in fatal beating

DOVER, N.H. – A woman accused of failing to protect her 21-month-old daughter from a fatal beating was convicted Monday on two counts of child endangerment.

Amanda Bortner, 20, faces up to two years in prison on the misdemeanor charges. She will remain out on bail until sentencing in January.

Prosecutors said she failed to protect her daughter, Kassidy, from months of abuse by her live-in boyfriend, Chad Evans. They also said she failed to take Kassidy to a doctor after Evans beat the toddler badly on Nov. 9, 2000.

Instead, Bortner drove Kassidy from their Rochester home to her sister’s apartment in Kittery, Maine, and asked her sister’s boyfriend to baby sit while she went to work. Kassidy died in a hospital later that day, after the boyfriend, Jefferey Marshall, noticed she was having trouble breathing and called 911.

“The things that the defendant watched were the price she was willing to pay for living in comfort, the price she was willing to pay to be with a man she thought was Mr. Perfect,” Assistant Attorney General David Ruoff said in closing arguments Monday morning.

But Bortner’s lawyer said Bortner was unaware that Evans was abusing her daughter. “Yes, she should have seen what was happening. Yes, she should have realized. But she didn’t. She had no idea,” argued Patricia Wiberg.

Evans, 31, is serving 28 years to life after being convicted last year of second-degree murder.

Bortner did not testify in her own defense, and her lawyer called just one witness: Travis Hunt, who lived with Evans, Bortner and the toddler at the time of Kassidy’s death.

According to prosecutors, Hunt told police that Bortner asked Marshall to baby-sit because day care workers would have noticed the multiple bruises left by the beating.

But on the stand Monday, Hunt denied ever saying that. Instead, he implicated Marshall.

Hunt said a few months before Kassidy’s death, he asked Marshall about bruises on the girl’s bottom. He said Marshall answered, “She was being a little bitch and I beat her ass.”

After the verdict was announced, Bortner said she will appeal.

“The truth will come out,” she said, leaning on the arm of Chad Evans’ mother. A few seconds later she ran from news photographers, holding a poster of Kassidy to block her face.

Her sister, Jennifer Bortner-Conley, said Bortner needed to accept responsibility for her role in Kassidy’s death. “I’m just glad Kassidy is finally going to have justice,” Bortner-Conley said.

During the weeklong trial, police investigators recounted interviews with Bortner in the days and weeks after Kassidy’s death. They said Bortner initially claimed to have no idea how or why Kassidy died. She told investigators the bruising on Kassidy’s face the day she died came from an accident with a plastic baseball and she claimed to be unaware of the other bruises on Kassidy’s body.

Ellen Shemitz, president of the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire, said the trial underscores that it is the responsibility “of every person … to report even the suspicion of child abuse or neglect to the Division for Children, Youth and Families.

“It is the DCYF’s responsibility to investigate … promptly, and it is the responsibility of the Legislature and governor to give DCYF the staffing and resources to do its work,” she said.