GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A baby-sitter who spent five years in jail is now free. She was accused of killing an infant but a jury failed to reach a verdict on the murder charge.
Channel 2’s Tom Regan spoke with Latasha Malone at the probation office, which was her last stop to freedom after five long years in the Gwinnett County Jail.
[How does it feel to be a free woman?] “It feels great, more importantly the fact that I'm innocent,” Malone said.
Malone has said all along she had nothing to do with death of a friend's 6-week-old baby boy under her care. She said she awoke in her Lawrenceville townhome in February 2009 and found the infant unconscious in the arms of her 4-year-old son.
“We all panicked. I called 911, I started doing CPR,” Malone said.
She said she first believed it was a case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But Malone was arrested and taken to jail after a medical report showed the cause of death was a brain fracture and hemorrhage.
The jail became her home for the next five years as she awaited trial.
“I had to live in housing units with females that thought I was the person that I wasn't,” Malone said.
“I didn’t do it and that was the most heartbreaking thing ever,” Malone said.
Most of the jury that heard her case this month also believed she didn't do it after the jury deadlocked. The district attorney decided not do to retry Malone on murder charges. She agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of child cruelty.
Mallone said she still doesn’t know exactly how the baby was fatally injured.
"It could have been a fall, but I don't know,” Mallone said. “I believe it was something with my son, but I'm not sure."
Channel 2 contacted the district attorney for comment, but was told he was not at work Friday.