A Waukegan woman charged with murder in connection with her 11-year-old daughter’s death was assigned a public defender on Monday, a move that could delay the start of her trial.
Nicholette R. Lawrence, 32, has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder and remains in Lake County Jail on $5 million bail. She could face life in prison if convicted.
According to Waukegan police, Lawrence admitted to striking her daughter, Raashanai Coley, in the stomach before she died last September. The investigation into the girl’s death and her autopsy results showed further signs of abuse, police said.
On Monday, Lawrence appeared briefly before Judge James Booras, who was told that Keith Grant, chief of special defense for the Lake County Public Defender’s Office, would be representing Lawrence from this point forward.
Lawrence was formally represented by private attorney Kevin Malia, who was appointed to the case by the court. Malia now has a conflict.
Assistant State’s Attorney Fred Day told Booras that state evidence, including video, will be made available to Grant, who said he has received the information Malia already had, but needed to review the state’s evidence to see if there are any new items for review.
Both Day and Grant said they were unsure whether the June 29 trial date, set last month, is still on track. The judge scheduled another hearing in the case for May 4.
More than 200 pages of state’s evidence previously had been turned over to the defense.
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Following Raashanai’s death, an autopsy showed signs of malnutrition and evidence of past abuse, including scarring, bruises and malnutrition, authorities said.
Police were called to the family’s Gillett Avenue home on the evening of Sept. 5, 2014, for a report of an unresponsive child. Raashanai was pronounced dead later that night at Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan.
According to police, Lawrence told investigators she had struck her daughter in the stomach earlier that week. A preliminary autopsy showed signs of blunt trauma to her spine and a tear in her stomach.
The 11-year-old weighed only 60 pounds, and the condition of the home was found to be substandard when officers arrived with a search warrant after the death, police said.
The death of the girl shocked her Waukegan neighborhood, which held a block-wide bake sale to help pay for her funeral expenses.
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