Mother requests new attorney after pleading guilty to beating infant daughter, sentencing postponed

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - A grandmother is frustrated after the woman who admitted to abusing a baby may now want to change her guilty plea.

Little Shaylee was a few months old when she ended up in a Colorado Springs hospital last July with multiple traumatic injuries, reportedly caused by her parents.

Shaylee’s father, Nasair Hall, pleaded guilty in the case and was sentenced last week. His plea deal made it so he avoided prison time and will spend four years on probation.

Hall’s stepmother, who now has custody of both of the Halls' children, told 11 News after Hall was sentenced, Freeman appeared to change her mind about her plea and requested a new attorney.

Freeman’s original plea deal came with a minimum sentence of 16 years in prison. She was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday but reportedly refused to leave the jail.

“I just want Lauren to know it’s time to face reality. It’s time to take accountability for what you did to Shaylee so we can move on. Shaylee deserves that,” said Kimberly Griffin-Murray, the little girl’s grandmother.

She described the moment she saw her granddaughter in the hospital as horrific.

“She was hooked up to monitors, a cast on her leg, she had tubes hooked up to her, she had burns on her eye. It was unbelievable,” Griffin-Murray said.

More than a year later, Shaylee is confined to a wheelchair and has frequent seizures that she needs medication for.

Griffin-Murray said she is disappointed in her own stepson’s sentence.

“I believe that [Hall] deserved jail time longer than what they gave him,” she said.

The grandmother was preparing to face Hall’s now ex-wife for her sentencing this week.

“On the 28th, we were going to get this opportunity to stand in front of her and let her know what she has done,” said Griffin-Murray.

But now, Freeman has requested a new attorney and there’s no telling when the family will get closure.

“You didn’t give [Shaylee] the satisfaction of being a normal child. Give her this. At all things, give her this. Let’s move on. Let her move on. Let us move on so we can better help her,” Griffin-Murray pleaded toward Freeman.

Freeman will be back in court on Thursday for an appearance of her new counsel.

After gaining custody of Shaylee, Griffin-Murray set up The Shaylee Foundation that seeks to support kinship caregivers, whether it’s family members taking in a child at the center of a court case or if there is a sudden death in the family. If you’re interested in supporting that cause you can visit: TheShayleeFoundation.info.

For more on this developing case, click here.