Birth Mother Heartbroken Over Suffocation Deaths Betournay’s Biological Mom Says Son Needs Mental Help, Fears For His Life

Brenda Kelley had hoped and prayed a jury would acquit her son of murder charges for killing his younger sister and her best friend.

But Daniel Betournay, 15, of College Place, Wash., was convicted Wednesday of two counts of first-degree murder in the Dec. 14 suffocation deaths of his sister, April, and her friend, Beth Garbe, both 14.

His defense lawyer, William McCool, contended during the 6-1/2-day Superior Court trial that Betournay suffered from diminished mental capacity and was not capable of premeditation or forming the intent to kill.

Kelley sobbed as the jury issued its verdict.

“Right now, Daniel needs mental help,” Kelley said afterwards. “Prison is going to destroy him.

“He’s either going to kill himself or someone’s going to kill him.”

Kelley, of Tacoma, was reunited with the son she lost more than 14 years ago after investigators tracked her down.

She last saw him when he was 18 months old and his 3-week-old sister, April, was being held in the arms of a state Child Protective Services worker as they rode away in the back of a sheriff’s car. Betournay banged on the inside of a window of the vehicle, crying for his mother as he and his sister were taken away, she said.

Kelley was only 17 at the time.

Child Protective Services severed Kelley’s and former husband John D. Holder’s custody of Daniel and April after the couple had fought through a messy divorce. Both children eventually were adopted by Jim and Judy Betournay.

Kelley said she always hoped for a reunion with her children. Last year, she gave her address to the agency overseeing adoptions in case her children tried to contact her.

“It’s always been my dream,” Kelley said. “I was going to have my kids back. They were going to be mine again.”

Kelley watched television news reports last December about a 15-year-old boy who had killed his sister April and her friend by taping plastic bags over their heads.

“Gee, honey,” she remarked to Ron Kelley, her husband of 10 years, “there’s another Danny and April out there.”

She never thought they could be her children until Prosecutor Jim Nagle and his deputy, Joe Golden, showed up at her door last May.

She visited her son in June at the Walla Walla County Jail.

“I just looked at him, and the first words that came out of my mouth were: ‘You are so beautiful,”’ Kelley said.

The two talked for a few hours over two days in June. She shared pictures of Daniel as a baby and her 8-year-old daughter, Angel.

Kelley and Betournay since have begun to write letters regularly, she said.

During their meetings, Daniel also apologized frequently for what he had done, Kelley said.Kelley says she believes “with everything in my heart” that Daniel didn’t mean to kill the girls. “It was a mistake,” she said.

Her former husband, John Holder, now lives without a phone in Newport, Wash. He was unreachable for comment.