In Minnesota, a 39-year-old mother will serve more than ten years in prison for killing her crippled 13-year-old daughter, shutting off the oxygen monitor, and letting her pass away while “blacked out” from alcohol.
According to court documents examined by Law&Crime, Elise C. Nelson was sentenced by Stearns County District Court Judge Heidi E. Schultz on Monday to 22 years (261 months) in a state prison for the 2020 murder of toddler Kylie Larson. In addition, she must make reparations totaling more than $12,000.
Nelson entered a guilty plea to one count of second-degree murder in connection with the death of her daughter last year.
Nelson is expected to spend two-thirds of his sentence, or 14 1/2 years, in prison and one-third on supervised release in accordance with Minnesota state law. Eight days of time were credited to her.
A probable cause affidavit states that Nelson was at home by herself with the victim from June 18 to June 21 while her other child was at a family friend’s house and Nelson’s husband, the victim’s stepfather, went fishing.
According to the authorities, Larson’s pulse and oxygen levels were stable for two days before declining. Police claim that although an alarm was set off, the oxygen-monitoring device’s history revealed that the alarm had been repeatedly muffled and that the alarm’s settings had been manually altered to permit the victim’s oxygen levels to continue falling without raising an alert. Nelson also repeatedly shut down the equipment.
According to the police, on the morning of June 21, 2020, the family friend who was watching Nelson’s second child made multiple attempts to contact her. She went to the house after she was unable to reach Nelson, but the door was locked and the blinds were drawn.
Nelson contacted the family friend at 12:49 p.m., approximately an hour later, to let her know that she had just done an hour of CPR and was waiting for the police. After that, Nelson and the friend talked on the phone for almost seventeen minutes, ending at 1:07 p.m.
The affidavit then claims that at 1:09 p.m., Nelson made his initial 911 call.
On June 21, 2020, at around 1:13 p.m., police and emergency medical workers responded to a 911 call concerning a kid who was not responding at Nelson’s residence in the 1600 block of West Mill Street in Paynesville, which is approximately 85 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
First responders said that Larson was “cold to the touch” when they arrived and saw her lying on the floor of the living room. The child’s back and the backs of her legs were covered in blood, according to the medical staff, which suggested that she had died some hours ago. After being taken to a nearby hospital, she was declared deceased.
Nelson’s first justifications for her daughter’s fate did not align with the timeframe and unambiguous facts.
Nelson said that she “heard [the victim’s] alarm go off, she looked at the machine and saw [the victim’s] oxygen level had dropped to 86%” and that “at that moment [the victim] flatlined” before starting CPR when the defendant was questioned about what had transpired. Before dialing 911, Nelson said she spent an hour performing CPR.
Police weren’t alerted until more than six hours after the victim’s gadget “flatlined” at 6:43 a.m. on June 21, according to data from the device.
Additionally, her phone indicated that it “was in active use” while she claimed to have been administering CPR. Nelson’s looks was also deemed “inconsistent with a person exerting herself for 60 minutes while performing CPR” by the officers.
Nelson later acknowledged that she bought a 1.75-liter bottle of vodka because she was depressed and “drank to the point that she blacked out and does not remember what happened for long periods of time.”