Jun 28, 2005 EVERETT - A Lake Stevens woman admits to killing her four-year-old stepdaughter, saying she just snapped. Heather Ewell will now spend the next 8 1/2 years in prison, after striking a deal with prosecutors in the death of Sirita Sotelo. Ewell agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter to avoid the possibility of a stiffer sentence for murder. Ewell became a mother in ninth grade. By age 25, she was raising four of her own children, and 4-year old Sirita; the product of her husbands affair with another woman. Ewell insisted she loved Sirita like her own, but after months of the childs fits and tantrums, she could take no more. Thinking back on that night has been very difficult, said Ewell at her sentencing hearing. Im not sure if I remember everything accurately - but I do remember I lost it. My mind went blank. I wasnt able to control myself and I snapped under the stress and pressure of my life. In January, when Sirita wet her pants at their Lake Stevens house, Ewell threw her in the shower and then beat her so severely the girls liver was severed. Sirita spent most of her life in foster homes and had only moved in with Ewell and her husband 14 months earlier. Ewell says she couldnt handle the girl and had no one to turn too, even though Siritas previous foster parents offered to adopt her. That bothers me because you know we tried to see her (Sirita). We called, I left messages. All they had to do was answer the phone, said foster father, Gary M. Ewells attorney described her as a woman with a painful past - abandoned by her own mother, abused by her drug-addicted father and raped as a child. But the judge said none of that could excuse killing a little girl. Sirita Sotelo came into your home needing of love, said Judge George Bowden. She got a cold shower for soiling herself, a black eye, a severed liver, and a fractured skull. By the time the aid car arrived, rigamortis had set in, while you watched a movie with your other children. Bowden gave Ewell the high end of the sentencing range for manslaughter - eight and a half years, instead of six years. Ewell says shell use the time to get the help she needs and to make sure she never hurts another child, once she gets out. A state task force is considering Siritas Law , which would give foster parents more chances to adopt if biological parents remain unfit for more than a year.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 11:35:47 +0000
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