Inset: Halo Branton (New York State Police). Background: Persia Nelson addresses the court before she's sentenced for killing Halo in New York (WRGB).
A 26-year-old New York mother is headed to prison for decades — if not the rest of her life — after she dumped her 11-month-old daughter down a 10-foot drainage pipe and stood there for nearly 30 minutes watching her die.
Persia Nelson was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury in October in the death of Halo Branton. On Monday, a judge sentenced her to 25 years to life behind bars.
Halo died of hypothermia after authorities discovered her body in a pipe on the General Electric campus in Schenectady on March 10, 2024. Halo was the subject of an Amber Alert issued the day before she was found.
Prosecutors laid out the awful circumstances of the case at sentencing.
"She didn't just drop the baby in the hole," Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante told the judge, according to a courtroom report from local CBS affiliate WRGB. "She stayed there for 28 minutes after, as Halo cried herself to death. And she did nothing during those 28 minutes."
Nelson made a tearful apology to everyone involved in the case, including her daughter.
"I'm sorry I wasn't being a better mother to you," she said.
The judge was unsympathetic.
"You can cry all you want, but I know you're smart enough to know what you've got coming in this case," Judge Matthew Sypniewski told Nelson, per WRGB.
"This is not a tragic accident," the judge also said. "Absolutely not."
"I heard a lot, a lot of 'sorries,'" Sypniewski continued. "I didn't hear 'I'm sorry for murdering my baby.' You'll be saying that one day. In about 25 years, when you're before the parole board, I bet you'll be saying it then, because you're going to want to get out."
As Law&Crime previously reported, authorities from Schenectady police, New York state police and the FBI, among others, searched the area before they found the girl on GE's campus. Paramedics rushed Halo to the hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead, Schenectady police Lt. Ryan Macherone told reporters.
A criminal complaint obtained by Law&Crime said the girl died after Nelson dropped her down a 10-foot-deep "pipe access area" filled with water and mud at the bottom, which was located on GE's campus, about 3 miles from where Halo was reported missing.
Cops took Nelson into custody.
WRGB posted a video on YouTube of her arraignment. A prosecutor with the Schenectady County District Attorney's Office said Nelson dumped the baby down the pipe access area and "left the child there to essentially die."
A cousin of the girl's father told the Albany Times-Union her family is devastated. The father had been fighting for custody, the cousin said.
"She was beautiful, she was charming, she was very intelligent," she told the newspaper. "She looked just like her father."
Macherone declined to say who reported the girl missing. New York state police, when announcing the Amber Alert, said Halo was "taken under circumstances that lead police to believe that they are in imminent danger of serious harm and/or death." The agency originally said the girl was found safe and unharmed after canceling the alert. However, it later edited its posts on social media to say "Halo has been located."