Bail set for mother accused of killing infant daughter
A mother accused of killing her 3-month-old daughter appeared Thursday in Thurston County Superior Court.
Commissioner Rebekah Zinn found probable cause to charge Erin E. Hammonds, 42, with second-degree murder and set bail at $750,000.
A Thurston County arrest log shows Hammonds was arrested Wednesday evening at the Thurston County Coroner’s Office. According to a prosecutor’s statement of probable cause, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office initially responded to Hammond’s apartment Jan. 28.
Hammonds’ account within the probable cause statement lays out details of what she and her daughter did throughout that day, leading up to when she placed her daughter in a horseshoe-shaped pillow on the far side of her bed, laid down, and fell asleep.
When she woke up, according to Hammonds’ account, she noticed the infant was lying on her side with her face turned toward the pillow and wasn’t breathing.
Hammonds “ran next door screaming for her neighbor to call 911” and began performing CPR as instructed by a 911 dispatcher, according to her account in the probable cause statement.
A deputy coroner found no external signs of trauma on the infant, but further examination found evidence of “shaken baby” syndrome and fatal injury.
On Feb. 5, detectives interviewed Hammonds at the coroner’s office. In the interview, Hammonds was “adamant no one else was near” her daughter and that the results of the autopsy were false, according to the statement.
She was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder and booked into Thurston County Jail.
In court Thursday, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Megan Winder recommended Commissioner Zinn set bail at $1 million, citing a risk that Hammonds might flee and the serious nature of the charges against her.
A pretrial report indicates Hammonds has a criminal history that ranges from a misdemeanor theft in 1999 to two fourth-degree assault, domestic violence charges in 2018. According to the report, she has failed to appear in court a total of 27 times, 13 of which occurred in the last two years.
Public Defender Christian Cabrera argued Hammonds could not afford bail and recommended electronic home monitoring.
“She’s a mother who just lost her child, and to keep her in custody is to traumatize her,” said Cabrera.
Commissioner Zinn called Hammonds’ history of failures to appear “quite significant,” including a recent failure to appear for a treatment review related to a case in Thurston County.
Along with $750,000 bail, Commissioner Zinn ordered Hammonds not to have contact with any children or witnesses and ordered her to surrender firearms.
“What I see here are two 2018 domestic violence assault convictions, those are very recent,” Zinn said in court. “There’s an older domestic violence conviction from 2009, and now there’s a(n) allegation, which is only an allegation at this point, of an extremely serious violent offense.”
Arraignment was scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 18.