UNBEARABLE BURDEN
With nearby photographs showing her hugging her family, Michelle Conrad sat in her Summerlin living room and spoke of how she prayed for the chance to bash in her brother-in-law’s head with a baseball bat.
It is the kind of thing you do when you believe someone bears responsibility for your baby’s death.
“You go through so many emotions,” the 36-year-old mother of two surviving children said Sunday, weeping. “I drove all around Las Vegas searching for my brother-in-law with a baseball bat beside me. I was praying I’d find him. But now I’m glad I didn’t because I definitely would have used that bat. And that wouldn’t have been fair to my other children if I had gotten in trouble with the law.”
She couldn’t find him, but police did. And authorities have kept Sean Conrad, 27, in the Clark County Detention Center since June 6 in lieu of $10,000 bail. He is held on a felony charge of child abuse and neglect with substantial bodily harm.
Conrad, who fell asleep on the morning of Feb. 16 while watching his 16-month-old nephew, Logan, will be arraigned today on a felony charge that could bring him 20 years in prison. The charge is also probationable. A police toxicology report found that he had marijuana and cocaine in his system as well as hydrocodone, a prescription pain reliever.
Logan crawled out the doggy door of his grandparents’ home and fell in the swimming pool, according to police reports. He was apparently trying to get water in a bowl for the family dog.
Michelle Conrad’s mother-in-law, Darlene Conrad, 54, was arrested on the same felony charge as her son. Authorities said she allowed Sean, who lived with his parents, to care for Logan even though she had been asked not to by his parents.
Police reports show that Darlene Conrad left Logan in the care of her son so she could get her hair done. After her hair was washed, she called home to check on her son and grandson. When Sean didn’t answer, she decided to hurry home. She found her son asleep and her grandson face down in the pool.
“She told me she didn’t have any appointments, and there was no way she’d leave Logan with Sean,” Michelle Conrad said.
Darlene Conrad was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor failure to supervise charge. She received a six-month suspended sentence.
Laurie Diefenbach, the deputy public defender representing Sean Conrad, believes her client should receive no more punishment than his mother did.
“This was a tragic accident that I’m not sure should even be in the courts,” she said.
Vicki Monroe, the deputy district attorney handling the case, isn’t buying that interpretation.
“We think the facts show something else,” she said.
Police reports show that both charged Conrads were so distraught after Logan’s death they expressed suicidal thoughts and were taken to local hospitals.
“I know criminal convictions aren’t going to bring Logan back,” his mother said. “But maybe it will point out to people what can happen to them. Maybe it will show them that you have to have good gates around pools and be even more careful about who you leave your children with.”
Logan’s grandparents had a gate around their pool, but the doggy door opened directly into the pool area.
If one thing is certain about the drownings of children in Clark County, it is that nothing is certain about how authorities will handle them.
“We don’t prosecute all pool drownings,” said Monroe, who said her office does not keep statistics on how many child drownings are prosecuted. “When a decision is made to prosecute, it is fact intensive. What led up to a child falling into the pool? Where were the caretakers? What was going on?”
Of the 26 drownings in Clark County in 2006, five involved children under the age of 10 in swimming pools, according to statistics compiled by the Clark County coroner.
Logan was left at his grandparents’ home near Sahara Avenue and Arville Street while his parents took his 4-year-old brother, Chase, to California to test his new miniaturized all-terrain vehicle.
“This is such a tragedy in so many ways,” Michelle Conrad said. “I didn’t want to leave Logan, but my husband said it would be good for him to be with his grandparents. Now I can’t stop bringing that up with my husband, and I know I shouldn’t. You should be able to leave your child with his grandparents. I blame myself for not going with my gut. This is tearing my family apart. I know my mother-in-law and Sean loved Logan. But they didn’t act responsibly. My husband is supportive of me, but he really doesn’t want to talk about this. We’re going to need real family counseling.”
As she stood in Logan’s room — all the pictures have been taken down and many of his belongings are now in boxes — Michelle Conrad said her husband’s relations with his own parents and brother are now strained.
“Nothing is the same, and I don’t think it ever will be,” she said. “I can’t really talk with my husband’s family. I don’t know if we’ll ever be happy again.”
Eric Conrad, who works in the gaming industry, declined to be interviewed.
Michelle Conrad’s 17-year-old son, Anthony, might not go away to college because of his brother’s death.
“He’s afraid to leave me right now,” she said.
At their home, Darlene Conrad’s husband, John, said neither his wife nor his son would comment on Logan’s death.
“We’re just grieving,” he said. “This is terrible for our family.
Monroe said the decision to prosecute didn’t hinge on the willingness of Logan’s parents to go to court.
“I can’t say it didn’t matter, but it wasn’t the driving force,” she said. “We looked at the facts, and the family was very much in favor of prosecutions.”
Because Sean Conrad’s case is still pending, Monroe said she can’t talk about what specifically led authorities to prosecute him and his mother.
Michelle Conrad is sure the decision turned on her brother-in-law’s positive toxicology tests.
“I told my mother-in-law that I didn’t want Sean taking care of Logan because of his trouble with drugs, and she agreed,” Michelle Conrad said. “Sean fell asleep because he was on drugs, I’m sure of it. He was out practically all night. I am angry with him because he should have told my mother-in-law about his condition.”
Jeffrey Shaner, the attorney for Darlene Conrad, declined to discuss the facts of his client’s case, but did say his client will “probably be traumatized forever.”
One memory of her son keeps haunting Michelle Conrad. Just before she woke up on the day he died, Logan’s image floated into her consciousness.
“He was just staring at me, and I knew something was wrong,” she said. “It woke me up. I called my mother-in-law’s house, and there was no answer. I called and called. Now I believe that when I saw his image is when he fell in the pool. He was a mama’s boy. He knew I would help him so he was calling to me. But I wasn’t there.”
