PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island mother convicted of strangling her 8-year-old daughter in 2009 after the girl refused to take a bath and threw a two-hour tantrum was ordered Tuesday to serve 20 years in prison.
A judge in Providence ordered Kimberly Fry to serve 20 years of a 40-year sentence. The 38-year-old North Kingstown resident said at the hearing she would forever hate herself and wished she were dead so she could be reunited with daughter Camden in heaven.
“I will live with the loss of her forever,” said Kimberly Fry during teary remarks in which she acknowledged killing her only child, adding that she had “caused irreparable devastation.”
Fry was convicted in October of second-degree murder. Defense attorney Judith Crowell, who asked for a 10-year prison term, said she plans to appeal the sentence. Assistant Attorney General Stephen A. Regine sought a life sentence, saying Fry showed no remorse and blamed others for her conviction.
Camden’s father, Timothy Fry, said he is heartbroken by Camden’s death.
“There’s a huge hole,” said Fry, 42, who broke down at times. “She was everything to me.”
Prosecutors said Kimberly Fry followed Camden into her bedroom after her bath on Aug. 9, 2009, and strangled her, then tucked her lifeless body into bed with her favorite stuffed animal. Camden’s father found the girl dead next morning.
Fry was hospitalized later that day for overdosing on prescription medications she took the night before in a suicide attempt.
At the sentencing hearing, Fry said she did not realize Camden had died until she checked on the girl later that night, and that was when she overdosed.
During the trial, Fry’s lawyer called Camden’s death “a tragic accident” and said the girl was prone to tantrums and had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Prosecutors argued Fry blamed her depression on Camden and told her husband, Timothy, she wished the girl “wasn’t around.”
Both Kimberly and Timothy Fry highlighted the joy Camden brought them and said the tantrums discussed during court proceedings painted a misleading portrait of the girl.
Kimberly Fry nodded as Timothy Fry described Camden’s love of Sunday pancakes, ice cream and popcorn. He recalled how the girl declared she “was born to ride” when she learned how to ride a bike and loved to swim. The couple last month was granted a divorce that becomes final in July, according to court spokesman Craig Berke.
“She was a wonderful, caring, brilliant child and we will try to honor her memory and bring her forward,” Timothy Fry said.
Medical examiner Dr. William Cox testified for the prosecution that Camden died of cardio and respiratory failure caused by the strangulation. He said she lost consciousness within 10 to 20 seconds and died four to six minutes later. Cox pegged her time of death at between 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Defense witness and former Rhode Island chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Laposata said the girl died during a restraint as a result of asphyxiation brought on by a combination of chest compressions, suffocation and pressure being applied to the sides of her neck. She testified that Camden lost consciousness within two or three minutes of the restraint beginning. Laposata said Camden died in five to 10 minutes.
Fry’s public defender said that the girl was thrashing, biting, kicking and hitting her mother as she tried to get her to bathe and get ready for bed while Timothy Fry was at hockey practice. To try to calm her down, attorney Sarah Wright said, Kimberly Fry sat on Camden — as she had done successfully three months prior while the girl was having a tantrum while her husband was on a business trip. Wright no longer represents Fry.
When Fry spoke to her husband on the phone later that night, Timothy Fry testified she told him Camden was “quiet now” after a “two-hour crying fit.”
The defense portrayed Fry as a loving mother who sought medical treatment, academic help and family counseling for Camden, who struggled in school, threw tantrums that lasted an hour or longer and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder two months before she died. Fry herself struggled with insomnia, took medication for depression and was suicidal in the two weeks before Camden died, according to the defense.
Timothy Fry said after the sentencing that he doesn’t know whether Kimberly Fry intended to kill Camden.
“What I know is what I found on that Tuesday morning and my life has been in flux and in shambles since then,” he said.