Jury sequestered for the night; deliberations in Wakesha Ives trial continue Friday

Friday El Paso may learn the fate of mother Wakesha Ives. She is being tried for the death of her five-month-old baby girl, killed from heat exposure after being left in the car

A jury of 8 women and 4 men couldn’t come to a decision three hours after closing arguments ends. Around seven Thursday evening they decided it best to continue Friday, which means they had to be sequestered to a nearby hotel, and there’s no doubt the decision they’ll have to make will weigh heavy on their minds.

“Bringing her back through this pain feels really cruel,” said Ives’ friend Kanequa Chancellor.

The prosecutor made the case that this Riverside school teacher shouldn’t evade punishment for being forgetful. They want the jury to find her guilty for injury to a child and criminal negligence, arguing that making a mistake doesn’t make up for the fact she was reckless.

“I feel that the prosecution is really making her a victim of our human frailties, so it just seems that it’s absent of common sense,” said friend and Destiny Family Christian Center Pastor Adele Johnson. “There is no way that you pay for a baby-sitter, and you’re securing the best baby-sitter, then you deliberately pass it up for any reason. So I don’t understand why it even has come to trial.”

The defense is arguing Ives truly did not know the child was in the car. They called it a perfect storm. On May 10th, 2013, the prosecution said Ives was rushing to get to work on time. She was on medication and she was stressed. Trying to help, her husband put the kids in the car, and placed the diaper bag in the trunk.

Ives rushed to work, and with a silent, sleeping baby and no diaper bag in the front of the car where it usually was, in her mind, the baby was already at daycare. To prove Ives had no knowledge of her baby being there and therefore could not have been intentionally reckless, the defense played the 911 call from that day. As Ives heard her own shrieks and screams when they found the child, she audibly sobbed, rocking back and forth.

“Its cruel and its really just pointless,” Chancellor said. “I don’t think a mother, losing her child, I don’t think the threat of jail is going to ease her pain, its not even justice because that kind of pain is unimaginable.”

As Ives waited on the jury, she kissed and hugged her older daughter and her husband. She cried and looked scared. But even so, the prosecution warned the jury they’re not allowed to use sympathy in their deliberation, which continues Friday morning at 8:30 a.m.