FOND DU LAC (NBC 26) — A Fond du Lac mother has been found guilty and faces decades behind bars for the 2018 death of her two-month-old child.
District Attorney Eric J. Toney announced that a judge found Shauntina R. Fuller-Pankey guilty of First Degree Reckless Homicide, a Class B felony, after Fuller- Pankey entered an Alford plea at Thursday’s hearing.
According to previous reports, court records say police were called to a home on Merrill Avenue in June of 2018 because of the child's conditions. The child was declared dead at a local hospital.
According to the criminal complaint, the child had a large skull fracture and the final autopsy said her cause of death was blunt force injury to the head. The complaint said Fuller-Pankey told investigators that her daughter’s head hit a door.
As part of the agreement, the district attorney says charges for child abuse and resisting/obstructing an officer, were dismissed and read-in as part of the agreement.
The district attorney also noted in a news release that the state faced "significant challenges" in proving this case because one of the lead investigators, a former City of Fond du Lac Police Department detective, has Brady/Giglio issues placing their credibility into question leading the state to refuse to prosecute any future cases involving this former detective.
The detective was not named in the news release.
According to the news release, the former detective’s issues led to inspections by the courts and a special review of personal records and documents related to the criminal referral for his actions while he was a police officer.
As the result, the courts have ordered the disclosure of significant materials that had a direct impact on this prosecution to include:
1) Circumstances of the criminal referral related to mishandling of evidence and improper use of the Transaction Information for the Management of Enforcement System,
2) Racial bias,
3) Misogynistic content,
4) Mishandling of evidence,
5) Failure to turn over evidence/discovery directly related to this case, and
6) Other issues and circumstances related to the credibility of this former detective.
"Despite the Brady/Giglio issues of one former investigator, the City of Fond du Lac Police Department and their investigators worked tirelessly for years in an effort to obtain justice for this little girl," District Attorney Eric Toney stated in the news release.
According to a news release from the district attorney, the sentencing hearing for Fuller-Pankey will be in 2022 and a pre-sentence investigation report has been ordered by the court.
Fuller-Pankey faces up to 40 years of initial prison confinement and 25 years of extended supervision.
