Daycare workers sentenced

PORTALES - A mother-daughter pair of former daycare operators were sentenced March 5 for leaving two young girls suffering hours in a hot car the afternoon of July 25, 2017, in Portales.

Mary and Sandi Taylor were given 36 and 30 years in prison, respectively, after an emotional hearing that included impassioned pleas from people at both ends of the full courtroom.

On the victim side were calls for accountability and justice; on the defense side for compassion and forgiveness.

Judge Donna Mowrer gave Mary Taylor, 64, the maximum sentence of two consecutive 18-year terms for the two guilty verdicts last month on charges of reckless child abuse. She mitigated the sentence by six years on identical convictions for Sandi Taylor, 33, for being more immediately forthcoming with police about the incident.

Both will have to serve at least half that time in prison before they are eligible for release.

Their attorney, Tye Harmon, said he "couldn't be more optimistic about the appeal" to come.

District Attorney Andrea Reeb opened the afternoon portion of the sentencing hearing by speaking to "how these babies would have suffered" in what prosecutors said was over 2 1/2 hours in an SUV outside the Taylor's home-based daycare that summer afternoon.

"No sympathy should be given when you take somebody's child away forever, when you alter a child's life forever," Reeb said of the death of Maliyah Jones and serious injury to Aubriauna Loya, both of whom were younger than 2 years old. Maliyah had multiple relatives in Tucumcari.

Harmon maintained his arguments from trial last month and from motions filed in past weeks: In forgetting the children in that car, the Taylors committed a "tragic accident" but were not aware of that error and accordingly did not meet the statutory requirements for their first-degree felony convictions.

But accidents are not foreseeable, Reeb responded, whereas the Taylors could have prevented the tragedy with more strict attention to state daycare licensing guidelines.

Mowrer agreed with Reeb.

"This entire situation is something more than an inadvertent failure to follow standard protocol. The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that it was a day full of reckless disregard for the safety of the children. It was a day filled with shortcuts and laziness, and the sad fact is that this entire incident was 100 percent preventable," the judge said. "All it would have taken would have been a head count."

Sandi Taylor acknowledged that much when speaking with Portales police the night of the incident, in an interview where she sat in disbelief over what had happened. She touched on that shock again in a statement Tuesday addressed directly to Maliyah and Aubriauna's mothers, Erika Tafoya and Kristen Ashmore.

"I wish I could wake up from this nightmare. Regardless of what some people may think, we loved Maliyah and Aubri," she read, standing and shaking and crying. "Maliyah's precious smile will be embedded in my heart forever, and Aubri's sweet personality will be a special memory I will always hold on to. ... This doesn't change what happened, but I just want Erika and Kristen and their families to know that I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart."

Mary Taylor also repeatedly apologized, making up at the hearing for almost 19 months in which the defendants were forbidden to contact any victims involved in the case. Speaking through tears, she said she'd waited almost two years to address the mothers.

"There are days I can't even breathe at the thought of you not being able to hold and kiss your precious baby girl," she told Tafoya. "Kristen ... (Aubriauna) is such a strong little girl with such a strong soul. She truly is a miracle baby."

Mary Taylor told both women she loved their daughters "like they were my own grandchildren."

"All we ever wanted was to love, teach and make the children happy," she said.

The Taylors have 70 family members in Roosevelt County, according to court records, and half as many people filled their side of their courtroom for the hearing. More than 80 people wrote the judge letters on the Taylors' behalf, said Mowrer.

"Nearly every one of them said that you didn't intend to harm the children," the judge said before sentencing the women. "Some of them equated your despair over Maliyah and Aubriauna as your own life sentence of grief."

Be that as it may, probation or community service is an not option, Mowrer said. Harmon had requested the sentences be run concurrently and be mitigated by the maximum permitted by law, entailing a 12-year sentence for each woman. Reeb said anything short of the maximum 36 years would not be just.

"There's regret and sadness; that's the only mitigation that's been shown," Reeb said.

As Tafoya said in her own statements to the court, "because we will never be able to resume our normal lives, the Taylors should not be able to resume theirs, either."

"My hope is that they never forget Maliyah's or Aubri's face again and have to think of my baby every single day and feel the pain of her not being here anymore," Tafoya said. "Please hear Maliyah's voice this one last time so my baby can finally rest in peace."

Ashmore told The News she appreciated the Taylors' apology and was glad the court proceedings were at a conclusion. She and Tafoya both have moved from Portales since the incident and still have a long recovery ahead, as do plenty of others hurt by the tragedy.

"Much like a stone thrown into a pond, ripples flow from the point of impact outward," Mowrer said. "There are no winners, as Mr. Harmon said in his closing argument. There are only losers in this situation."