A jury is set to be selected Wednesday in the case of a former Rutland child care provider charged nearly five years ago with manslaughter and child cruelty in the death of 6-month-old Harper Rose Briar.
Stacey Vaillancourt, 58, was accused in 2019 of giving a fatal amount of a sedative found in over-the-counter antihistamines to the infant in her care.
Jury selection in the case is scheduled to take place Wednesday in Rutland County Superior criminal court in Rutland. A trial is set to follow on Nov. 27.
Vaillancourt pleaded not guilty to the two charges against her in March 2019. If convicted of both offenses, she faces up to 25 years in prison.
Rutland County State’s Attorney Ian Sullivan, the prosecutor, said several factors have contributed to delays in bringing the case to trial.
Covid-19 restrictions limiting in-person court hearings began in March 2020 and were not fully lifted until September 2022, he said in an email. The trial had been set for October 2022, according to Sullivan, but it was postponed until this January because a witness was unavailable.
Then, he said, a health issue with someone involved in the trial pushed back the January trial date.
Along the way, in December 2022, the defense filed a motion to dismiss the case, which wasn’t resolved until late May when Judge Cortland Corsones denied that motion, according to Sullivan.
That eventually led to the Nov. 27 trial date based on the availability of all the necessary witnesses, Sullivan stated.
The Pittsford infant died Jan. 24, 2019, at the child care facility that Vaillancourt ran out of her home on North Street in Rutland, according to an affidavit filed by Detective Trooper Seth Richardson of the Vermont State Police.
Richardson wrote that police were called at about 4:15 p.m. that day to the emergency room of Rutland Regional Medical Center, where Harper was pronounced dead.
Harper had been taken by ambulance to the medical center after authorities had been called to Vaillancourt’s child care facility for a report that an infant was not breathing, the affidavit stated.
It was Harper’s third day attending the child care facility when police allege Vaillancourt gave her a fatal amount of diphenhydramine, an “over-the-counter (sedating) antihistamine used for treatment of allergic reactions.”
An autopsy report from the state’s chief medical examiner’s office showed that Harper’s death was a homicide caused by “diphenhydramine intoxication.” The prosecution has alleged that Vaillancourt provided the drug to sedate the infant.
In seeking to dismiss the charges, Vaillancourt’s defense argued the state case was based on circumstantial evidence and also raised the possibility that another person could have administered the medication.
“The court is not persuaded by Defendant’s arguments,” Corsones wrote in his ruling in May.
“There is ample evidence that (Harper) was alive and breathing, well into the afternoon on January 24,” the judge wrote, adding that there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial and for a jury to weigh.
Read the story on VTDigger here: After long delay, trial to start for ex-child care provider charged in infant’s death .