A City Heights couple failed to care for their 3-month-old daughter, leading to the infant’s starvation death, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday at the onset of the pair’s murder trial, but defense attorneys said the defendants had mental health issues that left them incapable of caring for a child or themselves.
Brandon Copeland, 25, and Elizabeth Reneedawn Ucman, 26, were arrested in late 2021 shortly after police were called to their City Heights apartment on a report that the baby, Delilah, was unresponsive and in need of medical attention.
On Nov. 9, 2021, the child was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
During opening statements of the couple’s trial, Deputy District Attorney Franciesca Balerio told jurors that at death, the baby weighed 3.65 pounds, less than half her weight at birth.
The prosecutor said no underlying medical conditions were found to have caused her death, and that the child died due to sustained and prolonged malnutrition.
“This didn’t happen overnight,” said Balerio.
The prosecutor said part of the trial evidence would include a recorded conversation from inside a holding cell after their arrests.
In the conversation, Ucman allegedly discussed fleeing if they made bail.
Copeland allegedly at one point said, “We’re guilty as (expletive.) We neglected her.” Later, prosecutors say he said, “Technically, what we did was murder.”
Defense attorneys for Copeland and Ucman told jurors their clients came from troubled upbringings that included abuse and bouts of homelessness, coupled with mental health issues that left them largely incapable of caring for themselves or a child.
The couple, who were 21 and 22 years old at the time, moved from Tennessee to San Diego in 2020 and were initially homeless, but were able to obtain an apartment through San Diego Youth Services, which offers resources to youths who have experienced homelessness and poverty.
But their struggles became quickly evident when Ucman’s aunt visited the apartment and discovered the home in utter squalor, with trash, moldy food, insects and pet feces strewn throughout.
Copeland’s attorney, Courtney Cutter, said photographs of the couple’s squalid apartment would show jurors “these two young people were completely overwhelmed, that they were functioning at the level of children themselves.”
Delilah was placed in the care of Ucman’s aunt until the apartment could be properly rehabilitated.
After Delilah was returned to her parents, Balerio said the defendants cut off communication with family members and service providers.
Though family members, San Diego Youth Services and Child Welfare Services made repeated attempts to contact them, Balerio said the couple either ignored those attempts or falsely told providers that they were out of town and could not meet.
Defense attorneys said the couple isolated themselves after a blow-up with Ucman’s family members who stated they wanted to adopt Delilah.
Though Delilah’s condition deteriorated, the defense attorneys said the couple made genuine, but ultimately deficient, strides to care for her.
Cutter described the couple as “two naive, immature, psychologically damaged adolescents who believed that they could figure out how to make themselves into parents without anybody’s help.”
The defense attorney said that while the couple failed to care for Delilah, there were also other “systemic and individual” failures that contributed to the death.
Ucman’s attorney, Anthony Parker, said his client loved her daughter but suffered from postpartum depression, which interfered with her ability to recognize “how close to death Delilah was.”
Parker said the couple did not purposely withhold food from the baby, and the evidence would show they did feed the girl, even if their methods were insufficient.
Both defendants have remained jailed without bail since their arrests.