Nicole Allen, charged with neglecting and ultimately killing a 2-year-old boy in her care, faces a maximum 65-year sentence after entering a plea Friday to third-degree murder.
Allen joins her fiancé Grant Sherwin in taking criminal responsibility for the death of Logan Sherwin, who died Sept. 29, 2011, “of brain injuries associated with a four-inch fracture to the rear of his skull,” the State Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Prosecuting attorney Bobby Elmore said Monday he will likely request that Circuit Judge Michael Flowers impose the strictest penalty allowed under state statute when Allen comes before him for sentencing July 8 in Crestview.
Grant Sherwin, who was scheduled to testify against Allen at a trial set to have begun Monday, pleaded no contest in February to one count of child abuse and 10 counts of child neglect.
Elmore said he will seek a 20-year sentence for Sherwin, the maximum for the charges he pleaded to, when he is sentenced May 29.
The State Attorney’s Office agreed late Friday afternoon to allow Allen to plead no contest to one count of principal to third-degree murder — issued in cases where death was unintentional — and 10 counts of child neglect.
Neither Sherwin nor Allen has ever said the other was responsible for a blow to the head that killed young Logan, Elmore said. Both have insisted the child fell face first off a toilet, though the fatal injury was to the back of the skull.
“I don’t have any reason to believe either one of them,” Elmore said. “You can tell by the way we handled the case who we believe is responsible. The evidence points to her (Allen) as the person who likely struck the fatal blow.”
Speaking through his secretary, Allen’s attorney Ryan Mynard said Monday he had no comment on the plea deal.
Sherwin would have testified at trial that he and Allen left Logan and his 3-year-old sister, Olivia, locked in their Crestview home, “sometimes for hours on end,” according to Elmore and the State Attorney’s Office news release.
Elmore said Allen had a “telephone boyfriend” who was scheduled to testify that he overheard her striking the children.
Comments Allen made to friends about the children, whom Sherwin had fathered with another woman, also would have been introduced as evidence, Elmore said.
“All the things she said, including expressing the frustration she experienced about having his children at the home, led us to believe she was the one that struck out against the children,” he said.
One of the child neglect charges to which Allen agreed to plea was filed on behalf of Olivia Sherwin, the 2-year-old, the news release states.
Crestview police responded to a 911 call to the couple’s home on Pinellas Drive on Dec. 28, 2011.
They reported finding Logan malnourished and with bruising on his feet, forehead, lower legs, both arms and around his spinal column.
There also was a large bump on the front side of the child’s head, police said.
Sherwin told an officer that his son was potty trained and that he fell and hit his head while using the bathroom by himself, initial reports said.
Investigators reported finding the toilet lid in the home broken in three pieces.
Police also said there was little food in the house and estimated Logan weighed only a little more than 20 pounds.
Sherwin also told police his son had fallen while playing in the yard on the day of his death and received a “fat lip,” the report from the crime scene said. Sherwin told investigators the boy cried a little after the outside fall but said he was OK and went back to play.
Yvonne Jones, the grandmother of Logan and Olivia Sherwin, said even a 65-year sentence would be less than what Allen deserved.
“She took the life of a child,” said Jones, an employee at the Sheriff’s Office in Elizabeth City, N.C. “She took a life and she should at least spend her life in jail. She took the life of that child and he will never be able to do anything we all want our kids to do.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.