MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - A New Hampshire woman was sentenced Tuesday to 21 to 42 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of her toddler daughter.
Katlin Paquette killed her 21-month-old daughter, Sadence “Sadie” Willott in 2015. Paquette told police she was trying to get her daughter to sit down in the bathtub when she forcefully pushed her, causing Willott to hit her head on the cast-iron bathtub. Willott died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Paquette, 23, apologized for her actions during the sentencing hearing in Hillsborough Superior Court.
“I’d just like to say I’m sorry,” she said. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Benjamin Agati, the state’s top homicide prosecutor, offered a detail account to Judge Gillian Abramson of the events that led to Willott’s death in September 2015. Paquette is the second New Hampshire mother to be sentenced for killing her child in the past month. Katlyn Marin, 27, was sentenced to 45 years to life in early December for killing her 3-year-old daughter, Brielle Gage.
Both cases prompted calls for reform at the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families, which was involved with both families before the girls’ deaths.
Agati on Tuesday said Paquette’s case is far different from Marin’s. Paquette voluntarily told the police about pushing her daughter in the tub and appeared to show remorse, Agati said, and Willott suffered only from two points of impact. Gage, by comparison, suffered from more than 150 injuries, he said. Marin repeatedly lied to authorities and asked witnesses to lie on her behalf, Agati said.
“(Paquette’s) been cooperative with the criminal justice process,” Agati said.
Several days after Willott’s death, Paquette went to the Manchester Police Department to share what happened, Agati said. She told detectives she was giving Willott a bath before heading to work on Sept. 5, 2015. Willott was standing up in the tub and did not sit down when Paquette repeatedly told her to, prompting Paquette to forcefully push her down, Agati said. Willott’s head hit the side, then bottom, of the bath tub.
Paquette told police she noticed Willott seemed unable to focus and was quiet after that fall, but Paquette did not think anything was seriously wrong. She placed her in a play crib and went to work. Paquette was living at the time with her boyfriend and his mother. Her boyfriend first noticed something was wrong with Willott as she was laying in the crib, and he and his mother called 911. Willott later died.
Willott’s father, Chris Willott, sat in the front row of the courtroom Tuesday with his attorney, Rus Rilee. Chris Willott did not make any statements to the judge or to reporters after the hearing.
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