Upstate NY mother gets maximum sentence in baby’s hypothermia death

By Paul Nelson | Times Union, Albany, N.Y. (TNS)
Schenectady, N.Y.

Persia Nelson, the Schenectady mother convicted of murder for leaving her 11-month-old daughter to freeze to death in a utility area on a cold, rainy, and blustery night at General Electric’s downtown plant, was given the maximum prison sentence Monday after the judge rebuked her for the killing and her insistence that it was a tragic accident.

The penalty imposed Monday morning by Schenectady County Judge Matthew Sypniewski was what Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante-Pelman requested after reciting the facts of the case from the nearly three-week-long trial.

“This defendant made a series of choices, conscious choices, reckless choices, and depraved choices, and her sentence should reflect that and the devastating results of those choices,” Tremante-Pelman said.

“There are some things that you do that are just so awful that they alone define you, they alone matter. Your history does not and should not matter, and that is the case here.”

Tremante-Pelman showed a 60-second clip of “a box covering an 8-foot hole in the ground,” where Nelson dropped her daughter, then waited for 28 minutes before abandoning her child and walking to a heated building in the distance.

“Unfortunately for Halo, the reality is that she suffered. She spent her final moments in a dark hole… when her mother was right there above her, right there, hearing her suffer, hearing her cry cries for help that she never answered.”

Prosecutor Michael Nobles read a victim impact statement from Halo’s paternal grandmother, Courtney Keit.

“I’ve been struggling for so many reasons, most importantly, I’m just now coming to terms with the fact that Halo is now in heaven and her mother is the reason why,” Keit’s statement read.

“Every time I watch a movie and someone dies with their eyes open, I think of Halo and the pain and stress they said she went through before taking her last breath.”

Defense attorney Mark Sacco appealed to the judge to sentence his client to the minimum of 15 years to life in prison because she had no criminal history, was remorseful, was fairly young at 25 years old, and said that Nelson, with treatment, can be rehabilitated and not be a danger to society.

Sacco rejected the prosecution’s assertion that Nelson set out to kill her daughter. He said he had a hard time believing “that she wanted to do this, that this was her plan.”

“It just flies in the face of the facts of the case,” he said.

Sacco continued: “There’s no winners here. It’s a tragedy that you can’t quantify, but the question here today is what should happen with Persia Nelson and what should her sentence be.”

When it came time for Nelson to address the court, she rose to her feet and began by tearfully apologizing to her young son, her children’s father and his family, her family, as well as the law enforcement officers who were involved in the frantic search for Halo and the subsequent criminal prosecution.

She wept and trembled as she shared regrets she had for Halo and the infant’s loved ones, deeming the death a “tragic accident.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t being responsible,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t being a better mother to you.”

She also reflected on the personal toll Halo’s death has had on her.

“I still haven’t accepted my daughter’s death, but I have accepted accountability for my actions that caused her death,” she added.

“There’s no medication… that will change how I feel. I know I’ve ruined many lives, and I just want to say, I’m sorry to everyone that’s all.”

Sypniewski sentenced Nelson to 25 years to life in prison after calling the crime a “baby murder.”

He seemed unmoved by Nelson’s words and emotions.

“Miss Nelson, you can cry all you want, but I know you’re smart enough to know what you got coming in this case, right?” he asked, to which Nelson replied, “Yes.”

“I mean, we get all kinds of killings in this courthouse and in this courtroom — negligent killings, reckless killings, intentional, depraved-indifference murder and then we got this, baby murder.”

He rejected her description of Halo’s death as a tragic accident.

“Absolutely not,” the judge said. “I heard a lot, a lot of sorries, but I didn’t hear, ‘I’m sorry for murdering my baby.’ But you’ll be saying that one day. In about 25 years, when you’re before the parole board, I bet you’ll be saying it then because you’re gonna want to get out.”

A jury convicted Nelson in October for the child’s murder, which occurred in March 2024. The panel deliberated for three hours before finding her guilty of second-degree murder and child endangerment.

Nelson was seen on a GE security video dropping Halo into a utility pipe access tunnel area, or a “dark hole,” leaving the baby face up in standing water before walking off toward a lighted area about 400 feet away.

Prosecutors argued that was the moment Nelson left her child for dead and walked off to the heated structure.

Nelson was found by GE security about 20 minutes later when she alerted them that her baby was missing. Her report set off a frantic, 12-hour search involving multiple law enforcement agencies, during which a police officer peered into the tunnel and found the child.

Paramedics desperately tried to resuscitate the child, who was not breathing and had ice and frost on her face. She died of hypothermia.

Sacco argued at the trial that his client loved her daughter, did everything within her power to save the infant, and would never have abandoned the baby.

A medical expert, whom the defense called as a witness, told jurors he believed Nelson had suffered from “cold stress” the night Halo died.

Sacco conceded that the baby was put in a structure on the GE site. He said Nelson had consumed alcohol and marijuana before the incident.

© 2026 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.).
https://www.syracuse.com/state/2026/02/upstate-ny-mother-gets-maximum-sentence-in-babys-hypothermia-death.html

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