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JENNIFER EWING, right, along with her attorney Michael Atwell, left, wait to enter the courtroom Monday morning July 2, for a readiness and settlement conference. That conference was put off to August. Democrat photo by Pat Dollins
Jennifer Ewing, charged with a single felony count of child endangerment stemming from her son dying in a blaze that consumed their manufactured home, appeared in court Monday morning to push back her trial.
Ewing’s attorney, Michael Atwell, told El Dorado County Judge Daniel B. Proud that he had spoken with deputy district attorney Lisette Suder, and both had agreed that neither were ready for trial. Jamie Verwayen, standing in for Suder, confirmed this.
A new trial date of Oct. 16 was then given by Proud, with a readiness and settlement conference set for Aug. 17.
Afterward, Atwell requested that Ewing be allowed to go to Washington to visit family sometime between Aug. 6 and 10, for “a day or so up, a day or so back,” he said. However, Verwayen had issue with this, and after a short conference with the judge at the bench, Atwell withdrew the request.
Prosecutors claim that of Ewing, 27, locked her son in his bedroom the night of the fire, trapping him inside the house as it burned. Ewing stated in a Grand Jury testimony that she would lock Sebastian in his room when he misbehaved, but never in the evenings.
According to an autopsy report, her son, Sebastian, died of smoke inhalation and fire-related injuries. In pre-trial documents, Ewing claimed that she had been asleep when the fire started and, due to the intensity of the fire, was unable to rescue her son, leading to his death.
Sebastian set the fire with a lighter hidden in his room, a Grand Jury transcript suggests. He had been punished for setting fire to furniture earlier in the day.
Contact Cole Mayer at 530-344-5068 or cmayer@mtdemocrat.net. Follow @CMayerMtDemo.
Her son died because he started a (another, actually) fire. He died because of HIS disobedient actions, not because of his mother’s actions. If he had been locked in his room to prevent him from sleepwalking away from the house and into traffic, would the mother have been arrested for locking her son in his room? Whatever punishment she is given by the State, it will not compare to the sorrow she will always have because her son is dead.
That was her 3rd child. The other two have been removed from her custody for a reason. The child who passed away was a toddler. Don’t make comments on things you don’t understand.
I commented on the facts Cole Mayer wrote in this article. I do understand some things happen that are out of a person’s control. And I still stand by my last sentence of my first post.
i’m gonna tell you right now, that bash was my nephew, and yes he was in trouble for playing with a lighter, however it was a week after he turned four this took place. i have a six year old, and when i caught him playing with a lighter i didn’t lock him in his room. he got a lesson in fire danger, also yes he was the 3rd kid of hers to get hurt, her oldest daughter has brain damage b/c of her and her son has shaken baby, she shook him so hard his eyelids bruised, and he was only six months old, what did he do to deserve that huh? or her daughter with the brain damage what did she do to get beat so bad she almost died, did die and they brought her back, so in other words you don’t know what you are talking about, and i think you shouldn’t be talking about my nephew or what you may think you know about this case. why don’t you go back and read the articles know whats going on, don’t just defend a mother who was running from C.P.S in crescent city .ca because of what happened to her kids. think before you talk. by the way do you also believe Casey Anthony didn’t kill bay Caylee too?