Texas man accused of killing mother of their child will keep parental rights until trial, judge says
A Texas man charged with manslaughter after he hit the mother of his 1-year-old child with his car will keep his parental rights, a judge has ruled.
Ulise DeLao, 29, was arrested May 28 and charged with intoxication manslaughter in Canyon after a crash involving a pedestrian. DeLao had struck Brittany Torres, 27, as she was standing outside the vehicle, and she was pronounced dead at the scene, Canyon police said at the time.
An online fundraiser for Torres' family said she and DeLao were in a relationship.
Randall County court records show DeLao is charged with manslaughter. In August, a grand jury declined to indict him on a murder charge. He pleaded not guilty shortly after he was arrested, said his attorney in the criminal case, Jesse Quackenbush.
On Monday, a Randall County judge ruled in a separate case that DeLao can keep his parental rights over his 1-year-old child with Torres.
The day after Torres died, her mother, Jaqueline Sanchez, filed a petition in Randall County civil court seeking to become the legal guardian of DeLao and Torres’ son, Law&Crime and KVII-TV of Amarillo reported. NBC News has reviewed the docket summary for the case.
On Monday, Judge James W. Anderson rejected the bid to terminate DeLao's parental rights, the outlets reported.
“The judge refused to terminate his parental rights,” Quackenbush told NBC News. “There’s no intention on the part of the court system to take away his parental rights at all now or in the future. The judge made a final non-appealable decision based on his discretion that there was no evidence to terminate parental rights.”
An attorney for DeLao in the civil case did not respond to a request for comment.
Blair Saylor Oscarsson, an attorney for Sanchez, said she was "devastated" by the judge's decision and is "afraid for the child's safety."
“The judge ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence that Mr. DeLao endangered the child’s physical health or emotional well-being, but he found he did not find sufficient evidence that termination is in the child’s best interest,” Oscarsson said, noting that Sanchez is seeking to file a motion asking the judge to reconsider.
Quackenbush said there was no intentional crime in the death. “After our grand jury looked at it with a fine-tooth comb in Randall County, Texas, they’ve determined there’s zero evidence of intentional conduct, that this, at best, is a manslaughter, accidental death case,” he said of the grand jury’s refusal to indict DeLao on a murder charge.
Quackenbush said his client admitted running over his girlfriend but said it was an accident.
“She had gotten out of the car extremely intoxicated at her home, where my client drove her, and he was pulling away in a very normal way, and she was in back of the car, and he didn’t know it, and she was run over and killed accidentally,” he said.
Oscarsson alleged a history of domestic violence between DeLao and Torres, which Quackenbush denied.
DeLao had been released in October on $250,000 bond, records show. Under his bond conditions, he cannot use alcohol or drugs; he cannot leave Potter, Randall or Armstrong counties; he must surrender passports; he must have a device installed on his vehicle that uses “a deep lung breath analysis mechanism”; and he must wear a GPS tracking device.
Quackenbush said DeLao, whom he described as an honorably discharged veteran who served six years in the Marine Corps with no criminal record, intends to fight the manslaughter charge.
Jessica Heller, Torres’ aunt, said Torres was a “shining light” who could “brighten any room the moment she walked in.”
“She deserved nothing but love, kindness and respect — never to be hurt or made to feel small. Her voice was hers to be heard, and it’s our promise, as her family, to keep speaking for her and honoring her memory with all the love she deserved,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com