A 34-year-old mother in Florida will spend many years in prison because she took her 5-year-old daughter and led police on a high-speed chase that ended with her crashing into a retention pond and leaving her daughter to drown while she tried to get to safety.
Court records looked that Pamela T. Cabrera was given the maximum sentence of 30 years by Fourth Circuit Court Judge Jonathan D. Sacks on Tuesday for killing young Vanity Cabrera in 2022.
After making a deal with prosecutors in January, Cabrera was sentenced. As part of the deal, she admitted to one count of aggravated manslaughter of a child and one count of aggravated felony fleeing or attempting to elude causing serious bodily injury.
In exchange for Cabrera’s guilty plea, charges of vehicular homicide, battery on a police officer, and battery on an emergency medical care provider were dropped.
Public Defender Teresa Sopp, Cabrera’s lawyer, read from a note she wrote in which she apologized for what she did at her sentencing hearing on Tuesday, according to WTLV, an NBC affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida.
Cabrera is said to have written, “I’m very sorry for the actions that led to the death of my daughter.” “I’m still upset about my daughter Vanity.” To make sure that doesn’t happen again, I’ve been taking my medicines for two years and plan to keep doing so.
Sopp had asked that her client be given a 10-year sentence. She said that Cabrera was having a mental health crisis and that the state should focus on treating mental illness instead of putting people in jail for long periods of time.
The public defender is said to have said, “Really need to get the state of Florida serious about funding mental health treatment centers, day care centers, and overnight long-term care centers for people who desperately need this.”
“Otherwise, we’ll keep having these sad, tragic, and horrible cases of people who have fallen through the cracks in mental health care safety nets.”
Lawyers & Crime said that Cabrera had a knife with her when she went to her sister’s house on March 31, 2022, and took Vanity.
A woman named Cabrera had mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The Florida Department of Children and Families took custody of her child, and Cabrera’s sister became her legal guardian.
Cabrera’s sister called 911 right away, and police started looking for the girl who had gone missing.
They chased Cabrera for 30 miles at high speeds and say he ran every red light from Biscayne Boulevard to I-95 South. She was driving all over the place, crossing lanes quickly and almost hitting other cars more than once.
Before trying to get off at an exit, Cabrera drove on the inside shoulder of the road and “passed semi-trucks.” But she couldn’t handle the turn onto the ramp and crashed into a retention pond.
“The suspect got out of the car when it was submerged and grabbed a tire to stay afloat.” The suspect saw the police officers in the water and yelled, “Help me!” “Save me,” the police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. “The suspect didn’t do anything to help her daughter, who was stuck in the front seat of the car.”
A lot of police officers jumped into the water to try to save Vanity, but “the vehicle sank to the bottom of the pond,” they couldn’t. The victim was later found by a dive team, but he or she was already dead inside the car.
An account set up to raise money for Vanity called her “the most loving child” and said that her smile could “light up a room.”
