Bail denied woman convicted in death of 14-month-old girl

Bill Gang

Monday, Feb. 15, 1999 | 11:10 a.m.

If Alica Wegner, the licensed child-care provider convicted of killing a 14-month-old girl in her care, is to taste freedom in the next 20 years, the Nevada Supreme Court will have to step in.

District Judge Mark Gibbons on Friday denied Wegner's request for bail to keep her out of prison while she appeals her conviction for the child-abuse murder of Kierra Harrison.

Wegner's lawyers can petition the Nevada Supreme Court to set bail or order Gibbons to reconsider his ruling. The high court has never granted such a petition before. The high court also eventually will hear her appeal.

Wegner had been free on $100,000 bail for nearly two years before her conviction of first-degree murder by a jury on Dec. 3. She was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

The 35-year-old mother of three sobbed at her bail hearing Friday and denied having been responsible for the massive skull fracture that took the life of Kierra Harrison. She had been emotionless at her sentencing Wednesday.

"I am not a murderer," Wegner said, her voice cracking. "I did not take Kierra's life."

She asked for freedom on bail pending appeal and predicted that "when the medical evidence comes out, I'll be proven innocent."

Although her lawyers said she would gladly accept any restrictions on her freedom while on bail, Wegner urged the judge not to tether her to a house arrest ankle bracelet because it would make it difficult to obtain a job.

Wegner's attorneys argued during the trial that Kierra's injuries occurred when she was in the care of her parents over a weekend in March 1997, before she was brought to the child-care facility where she eventually collapsed.

Tests by defense experts -- including the Mayo Clinic and the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology -- on tissue taken from the girl's brain after her death indicated an injury that had been inflicted prior to the date Kierra collapsed.

But emergency room doctors and prosecution experts concluded the girl's massive skull fracture would have resulted in her falling unconscious very quickly, not hours or days later.

While Gibbons agreed with the defense that Wegner is not a flight risk or a danger to the community, he denied the bail because she had violated court orders that she have only supervised visitation with her own children while on bail pending the trial.

Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon argued that a killer should never receive bail pending appeal and noted that most states don't even let convicted murderers ask for the privilege.

He added that freeing Wegner on bail would further delay the closure the victim's family has been seeking through the criminal prosecution.

"A sentence in theory is different than a sentence in reality," Herndon told the judge.