Mother indicted on manslaughter charge in son’s beating death

Daniel Kittredge
Posted 8/20/15

Weeks after the conviction and sentencing of a Central Falls man in connection with the 2009 beating death of six-year-old Marco Nieves in Cranston, the boy’s mother has been indicted for alleged …

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Mother indicted on manslaughter charge in son’s beating death

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Weeks after the conviction and sentencing of a Central Falls man in connection with the 2009 beating death of six-year-old Marco Nieves in Cranston, the boy’s mother has been indicted for alleged criminal negligence in connection with the crime.

The Providence County Grand Jury last week reported out the secret, sealed indictment charging Trisha Oliver, 32, of 116 Sutton Ave. in East Providence with manslaughter. She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment last week, and a pre-trial conference is scheduled for Sept. 28.

In April, 33-year-old Michael Patino was convicted of second-degree murder in Marco’s death following an 11-day trial in Providence Superior Court. He has since been sentenced to serve life in prison.

Patino and Oliver, then his girlfriend, found Marco unresponsive and not breathing on the morning of Oct. 4, 2009, at Oliver’s apartment at 575 Dyer Ave. in Cranston. Responding emergency personnel found the boy in full cardiac arrest, and he was pronounced dead 11 hours later.

At Patino’s trial, former state chief medical examiner Dr. Thomas Gilson testified that the boy died from peritonitis, or inflammation of the abdominal cavity, which resulted from blunt force trauma to the abdomen that caused a tear in his intestine. According to the testimony of Gilson and Dr. Linda Snelling, Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s chief of pediatric critical care, the boy also had other injuries.

Also during the trial, more than two-dozen text messages sent by Patino to Oliver – in which Patino admitted striking the boy – were introduced as evidence.

Cranston Detectives John Cardone and Jean-Paul Slaughter led the investigation, while Assistant Attorney General Stephen A. Regine and Special Assistant Attorney General Peter Roklan prosecuted the case on behalf of Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s office.

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