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Ashley Rolland and Blu Rolland (Mug shot: St. Francis County Sheriff’s Office; image of Blu: GoFundMe)
The defense for an Arkansas mother are trying to save her from the death penalty, saying she played no role in her live-in boyfriend drowning her 5-year-old son in a toilet.
Both Ashley Rolland and Nathan Bridges are charged with capital murder in the horrid death of young Blu Rolland, but the mom’s attorney argues that evidence shows that her client is not eligible for the death penalty under case law.
“In this case, the State filed a criminal information against Rolland stating that the codefendant, Nathan Bridges, was solely responsible for the homicidal act and that Rolland was merely present at the scene. The State declined to address how Rolland participated in the murder or how she was otherwise involved,” attorney Erin Lewis said in a filing dated Thursday. “Other discovery produced to Defendant by the State includes a statement from a witness present at the residence on the night of incident telling law enforcement that Rolland was screaming ‘Stop it!’ to the co-defendant. These facts, when viewed in conjunction with the case law cited to above, demonstrate that Rolland is not eligible for the death penalty.”
Authorities in Lee County, Arkansas, say that Bridges stuck his finger in Blu’s mouth and the young boy bit him. Bridges allegedly responded by drowning the child in a toilet.
“Rolland stated that she was in the living room while [Blu] was in the bathroom with Bridges,” authorities previously wrote. After Bridges left the bathroom, she entered and found her son struggling to breathe, his body limp, she allegedly claimed.
After that, Bridges cut a hole in the floor of the home, dug a hole in the ground, and buried the child’s body under the house.
Rolland allegedly said that Bridges also caused burns to her 6-year-old daughter’s head by holding the child’s “head and upper torso under hot water in the bathtub” as “punishment for her behavior issues.” But according to authorities, she at first told them the burns were an allergic reaction, and that Blu was not at home.
Defendant Rolland is charged with capital murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree, and battery in the first degree. She is also charged with two counts of permitting child abuse, with one count being for her daughter’s injuries.
The case against Bridges is also ongoing. He is charged with capital murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree, and battery in the first degree.
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