PRESQUE ISLE – Rena Leathers feels as if she has lost both of her daughters.

Leathers, 22, was by her 20-month-old daughter’s bedside when Teairra Leathers was pronounced dead the night of Tuesday, June 19. The little girl with blond hair and big, blue eyes died of severe, acute trauma to the head. Police have charged her baby sitter Heather Fortin, 23, of Limestone with manslaughter. Fortin has denied harming the child.

Leathers said in a phone interview Friday from her mother’s apartment in Dexter that she can’t believe her little girl is gone and that she doesn’t want to believe her friend is responsible. Making matters even worse is that her other daughter, 21/2-year-old Skylee, also has been taken from her.

Leathers said the Maine Department of Health and Human Services took custody of Skylee because of her “poor judgment” in leaving her girls with Fortin.

Leathers said that several weeks ago DHHS had investigated Fortin after reports of abuse, but had found no evidence to support the allegations. She also said she didn’t think the allegations were true because she and Fortin had been good friends for about a year, that Fortin always watched her daughters for her and took good care of them.

“I didn’t believe Heather would do anything to hurt any children,” Leathers said.

Now she’s not so sure.

On June 18, Leathers and her now ex-boyfriend Shayne Ellis planned to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. On the way, they dropped off Teairra at Fortin’s house. Earlier in the day, Fortin had picked up Skylee to play with her daughter, Keegan, who is almost 2. Leathers said that when she dropped Teairra off, at about 6:30 p.m., her little girl was fine.

“The only thing she was doing was throwing a fit like she always does because Mommy was leaving,” Leathers recalled.

About 15 minutes after Leathers left, Fortin called 911 for an ambulance because the little girl had gone limp and was struggling for breath. When the ambulance crew arrived, Teairra was lying nearly unconscious on her baby sitter’s couch, according to police.

Police found Leathers and Ellis at their meeting in Caribou and told them they had to go to the local hospital because Teairra was having a medical emergency.

At first they thought the girl was having seizures because the medical condition runs in the family. But after Teairra was taken by aircraft to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Leathers learned otherwise.

A doctor told Leathers her daughter had suffered a major brain injury caused by severe trauma to her head and that officials didn’t think she was going to survive. Teairra was pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m. on June 19.

“I didn’t want to believe Heather had done something. I still don’t want to believe it,” Leathers said Friday. “But obviously, all the evidence is pointing that she [Fortin] did something, whether it was intentional or not.”

Leathers had left Skylee at Fortin’s house when she went to Bangor to be with Teairra. Shortly after doctors spoke with her Tuesday about her daughter’s condition, Leathers said, she realized she had to get Skylee out of Fortin’s house.

“My only thought was to get my daughter out of there as soon as possible,” she said. “I didn’t want anything to happen to my other daughter.”

She said she called Ellis, who was in Limestone, and she called police to try to get her daughter back, but that no one answered the door at Fortin’s Huggard Avenue home. Limestone Police Chief Stacey Mahan said he had no record of police going to Fortin’s home to try to remove the 2 1/2-year-old.

Leathers said she later found out that DHHS removed her daughter from Fortin’s house that Tuesday. She said the department since has placed Skylee with her cousin, who lives in Dexter. She is allowed no contact with her, though, until official visitations are set up.

Leathers said she also has a 6-year-old son, Dakota, who has been in DHHS custody “for completely different reasons” but that she didn’t want to talk about that situation.

She said a graveside burial for family and close friends only is being planned for Teairra. “We want her to know her mommy and her daddy and her whole family love her,” Leathers said.

Leathers said Teairra’s body has been cremated and the service will be held on Tuesday, July 10, in Dexter.

In the wake of Teairra’s death and her separation from Skylee, Leathers said she is dealing with a lot of anger.

“I feel a lot of hatred toward Heather, whether she did it purposely or accidentally,” she said. “I thought she was my friend.”

Leathers since has relocated to Dexter to be with her family and her husband, David. David Leathers is Teairra’s father.

Rena Leathers said she thinks about her little girl – who would run around after the family cat and say, “Meow, meow” – and wishes she had done things differently that fateful Monday night.

“I say all the time that I should have taken Teairra and Skylee to the meeting with us,” she said.