GUILTY FL - Bryant Moore, 7, dies after 6 yrs in vegetative state, Miami, 2005

A Homestead woman has been charged with first-degree felony murder in the April death of a 7-year-old who had been in a vegetative state in Daytona Beach.
Miami-Dade Police Department arrested Katherine Ivette Cruz, 31, on Tuesday in Miami in the death of Bryant Moore.

Moore had been in a vegetative state at various locations for six years and had been in Daytona Beach since 2002.

An arrest affidavit from the Miami-Dade Police Department states Cruz, who was the girlfriend of Moore's father, "continuously inflicted serious bodily harm" while he was under her care in 1999 in South Florida when he was 22 months old.

Moore's father, Willie Moore, and Cruz were arrested in 1999. Det. David Denmark with the Miami-Dade Police Department said Cruz served five years probation and Moore's father served one year in jail for medical neglect.

Denmark said the father is not being charged in the child's death.

Cruz remains in the Dade County Women's Detention Center with no bail.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Local/03AreaEAST06080505.htm

June 2009 - Katherine Cruz pleaded guilty to child neglect with no great harm and was sentenced to time served. The prosecution obviously didn't have a good case for murder after all

CRUZ, KATHERINE IVETTE
Court case number: F-05-024538
Date of birth: 08/16/1973