VERO BEACH — The mother of a 5-month-old infant who died in the back of her SUV while she worked all day entered a plea deal today that gives her five years of probation instead of 30 years in prison.
Judge Robert Pegg accepted the plea deal between Stephanie Ann Salvilla-Werking’s attorney and the State Attorney’s Office. Werking has no right to ask for an early termination to her probation under the agreement.
“They understand this could happen to the best of parents,” Werking said of the legal teams outside the courtroom.
The plea deal means that Werking agreed to plea “no contest” to a charge of leaving a child unattended resulting in death and dismisses the charge of aggravated manslaughter.
Werking said that she knew she had her infant son, Gannon, with her the morning she went to work. It was part of her routine, she said. She added that she just knew that she had dropped him off at daycare.
“Every bone in my body said I had completed my task,” Werking said.
“The brain is a complex organ,” she added. “Sometimes we have to protect our kids from ourselves.”
When a reporter asked Werking if she felt a prison sentence would have been worse for her, dur to the suffering she is already experiencing, Werking replied, “No.”
“I live with this everyday,” she explained, “every time I go to my car.”
She faces charges of aggravated manslaughter and leaving a child unattended resulting in death.
What her plea change would be to has not been disclosed. Werking and her attorney, Andrew Metcalf, are scheduled to go before Judge Robert Pegg at 11:45 a.m. The court hearing is open to the public.
Werking’s attorney, Andy Metcalf, told reporters outside the courtroom that the plea deal was in the best interest of Werking.
“This kind of tragedy is the worst punishment,” he said.
Metcalf added that he had hoped the State Attorney’s Office would have dropped the case, but it did not.
Metcalf explained that the charge of leaving a child unattended resulting in death is a third degree felony but that Werking is not a convicted felon. Instead, Judge Pegg withheld adjudication on the charge as part of the plea deal.
Salvilla-Werking, of Sebastian, was charged with aggravated manslaughter after her son, 5-month-old Gannon, was left in a child’s safety car seat in the back of her SUV when she went to work in Vero Beach in late July.
She is the second mother in recent history in Indian River County to face charges of aggravated manslaughter and leaving a child unattended in a vehicle resulting in death.
The first was Alejandra Alvarado, of Fellsmere, who left her 20-month-old son in the back of her vehicle while she ran errands and did not realize he was still in the vehicle four hours later.
On Oct. 28, Alvarado entered a plea similar to Werking’s, which dropped the charge of aggravated manslaughter and gave her five years of probation.
Judge Pegg presided over Alvarado’s case as well.
Read more about Alvarado’s case here: Fellsmere mom who left son in hot car gets probation
