REMEMBERING SADIE

Sadie Lavina Gates was only 19 months old when she died.

She was still a toddler, at an age when curiosity often moves faster than a child's understanding of danger.

Sadie had a mother, Heather Gates, who loved her and whose life was permanently changed by losing her daughter.

Unfortunately, very little reliable public reporting preserves the everyday details of Sadie's short life. Her favorite toys, the things that made her laugh and the little routines her family knew have largely disappeared from the surviving record.

What remains publicly is overwhelmingly about the circumstances of her death.

Sadie deserves more than that.

She was a little girl before she became the subject of a criminal case.

She had only been given 19 months to experience the world.

SADIE’S STORY

On September 27, 2010, Sadie was left in the care of Amanda Gayle Stump at Amanda's home on Burgaw Highway in Onslow County, North Carolina.

Amanda operated a home daycare.

Heavy rain had fallen in the area, causing a creek or drainage ditch near the property to become swollen with water.

The water presented an obvious danger to a toddler.

There was no effective fence separating the home from the creek, and barriers around the porch were inadequate to prevent a small child from leaving.

At some point while Sadie was in Amanda's care, she was left without direct supervision.

Later court records estimated that Sadie may have been unattended for approximately five to fifteen minutes.

That was enough time.

Sadie managed to get through an unsecured door.

She made her way off the porch and toward the water.

The swollen creek was only about 25 yards from the house and reached depths of approximately five feet in places.

Sadie fell into the water.

By the time she was found, she had drowned.

She was 19 months old.

Investigators examined the circumstances surrounding Sadie's death.

Amanda acknowledged that she had smoked marijuana before Sadie's parents brought her to the home that morning.

Prosecutors concluded that Sadie's death was not simply an unavoidable childhood accident.

Amanda had accepted responsibility for caring for a toddler while living beside a dangerous body of water, yet Sadie had been able to leave the house unnoticed and reach it.

Amanda was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

WARNING SIGNS

Sadie's death did not involve the prolonged pattern of physical abuse seen in many Abuse Angels cases.

The danger came from neglectful supervision.

The swollen creek was close to the home.

There was no effective fence preventing a toddler from reaching it.

The barriers around the porch were inadequate.

The door through which Sadie escaped was unsecured.

Most importantly, Sadie was 19 months old.

She could not reasonably have been expected to recognize the danger posed by the water or protect herself from it.

That responsibility belonged entirely to the adult caring for her.

There is not enough reliable evidence for me to characterize Sadie's case as a documented child welfare system failure before her death, so a SYSTEM FAILURES section would overstate what the record establishes.

The warning signs here were environmental and immediate.

A toddler.

An unsecured exit.

Inadequate barriers.

A swollen body of water only yards away.

And insufficient adult supervision.

Together, they became fatal.

JUSTICE FOR SADIE

Amanda Gayle Stump was charged with involuntary manslaughter following Sadie's death.

The case ultimately ended in 2012.

Amanda entered a no contest plea to involuntary manslaughter.

She was sentenced to three years of probation.

That might have been the end of Sadie's story in the public record.

It wasn't.

In May 2013, while Amanda was still on probation for Sadie's death, another 19 month old girl drowned while in her care.

This time, the child was Amanda's own daughter, Mercadiez Reed.

Mercadiez drowned after getting out of Amanda's home and reaching an above ground swimming pool.

The prosecution of Mercadiez's death repeatedly returned to what had happened to Sadie.

Prosecutors argued that Sadie's death had given Amanda direct knowledge of how quickly a toddler could escape supervision and drown.

Amanda was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in Mercadiez's death but convicted of misdemeanor child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Those convictions were later vacated on appeal because the appellate court concluded prosecutors had improperly used Sadie's death throughout the trial.

None of that changed Amanda's earlier conviction for Sadie's death.

Amanda Gayle Stump

Relationship to Sadie: Babysitter

Conviction(s): Involuntary manslaughter

Sentence: Three years probation

FOREVER REMEMBERED

Sadie's life lasted 19 months.

Her death required only minutes.

That is one of the cruel realities surrounding the death of a toddler through inadequate supervision.

Sadie did what toddlers do.

She explored.

She found an opening.

She walked outside.

She had no way to understand that the rain swollen water near the house could kill her.

She should never have needed to understand.

The adult caring for her was supposed to make sure she could not reach it.

Years later, Sadie's name unexpectedly returned to court when another little girl of almost exactly the same age drowned while in the care of the same woman.

Courtrooms debated what jurors could legally be told about Sadie and how her death could be used as evidence.

Judges examined the similarities between the two drownings.

Lawyers repeated her name.

But Sadie was not evidence.

She was a child.

She was Heather's daughter.

She was a 19 month old little girl whose curiosity should have led to scraped knees, discovered toys and countless ordinary childhood adventures.

She should have been brought safely home to her mother at the end of the day.

She should have turned two.

Then three.

Then four.

She should have been given the chance to create the memories that are now so painfully absent from the public record of her life.

Sadie Lavina Gates deserved more than 19 months.

Abuse Angels remembers Sadie Lavina Gates.

Remembered. Honored. Never Forgotten.