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Mother Of Baby Killed At Day Care Speaks Out

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Jul 23, 2008 7:44 pm US/Eastern

Mother Of Baby Killed At Day Care Speaks Out

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― No charges have ever been filed and none are expected in the death of 10-month-old Marcia Poston, but the baby's mother, Rhonda Moore finds it hard to believe that no one will be held accountable. "I want someone to be held responsible for leaving my daughter unsupervised," she said.

Sitting in her Lawrenceville living room Rhonda cuddles under a blanket covered with pictures of her baby daughter.

The Allegheny County District Attorney's office has told her that the law does not support a case of criminal negligence in her child's death.

"Everything they're saying doesn't make sense," she says. "I feel they're not looking at the whole story."

On June 6th Rhonda dropped Marcia off at "Bray's Family Day Care" on Dearborn Street in Garfield, before going to her job as a teacher at Woolslair Elementary School.

Before that day ended her baby was dead.

"They're saying 'brain trauma' - her skull was shattered...it was shattered." Ms. Moore continued, "The funeral director had to piece it together for me to view her."

Investigators found that the daycare operator's daughter, Ashley Swann, was supervising five children that day.

The 20-year-old Swann was on the third floor changing the diaper of her son Mario.

She had left the other children in the basement with her 7-year-old niece for at least 25 minutes.

During that time, police say, the 7-year-old girl took Marcia from a baby seat dropping her twice on the carpeted cement floor.

But Rhonda says photographs of her daughter taken at Children's Hospital graphically tell a different story.

"This wasn't dropped twice - this was not - this was a beating that took time," says Moore.

Rhonda was also told by investigators that marijuana was found in the caregiver's bedroom but that she was never drug tested.

Until the case is closed in her mind, Rhonda Moore lives a daily agony only understood by a mother.

She says of her lost child, "I just want to touch her, I want to smell her, and I want to play with her feet, and I want to do 'head-shoulders-knees-and toes' with her."

Mike Manko of the Allegheny County District Attorney's office confirmed that no charges have bee filed so far, but that they are willing to review the case if new evidence comes to their attention in the future.

Marcia would have celebrated her first birthday at the end of this month.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.