BY DAN HILDEBRAN
The Bradford County mother arrested for manslaughter of a child on January 3 was released on bail after the state filed an additional charge.
When deputies investigated the infant’s death in January 2024, the child’s mother, Ronnesha Flowers, then 31, told detectives she was breastfeeding one of her twins when she fell asleep. When she awoke, the infant was unresponsive, not breathing, and had blood coming out of his mouth.
The child was pronounced dead later that day.
One month later, the boy’s twin sister suffered what one law enforcement source called severe lifelong injuries under similar circumstances in which her sibling died. In December 2024, prosecutors accused the mother of aggravated manslaughter of a child for the boy’s death. After Flowers was arrested, the state filed an additional charge of child neglect with great bodily harm.
Lawyer raises SIDS possibility
During a January 15 hearing, Flowers’s attorney, Chief Assistant Public Defender Canaan Reuben Goldman, told Circuit Judge James Colaw that the boy may not have died of asphyxiation as Bradford deputies, citing a medical examiner’s report, claimed but rather because of a genetic condition.
“The children’s maternal grandparent… indicated there have been two previous sets of twins in the family where each of them has lost a twin due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,” he said. “…meaning the children suddenly pass away under a year of age, meaning two months, and there’s no true explanation.”
“She’s a great mother,” he said.
Goldman added that according to deputies, his client told them that when she awoke, the child had blood coming out of his mouth.
“The oral, nasal blood is consistent with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,” he said.
Goldman also questioned the state’s claim that Flowers was culpable for her son’s death.
“They’re saying that this should be culpable negligence in some factor because she, a mother of these children, has newborns and, within a month-and-a-half, falls asleep while trying to stay awake while in bed with her child in a very small house with many children in the house,” Goldman said. “A tired mother of twins falling asleep.”
Goldman said Flowers and her husband work in retail and earn just enough to support their four school-age children and three preschool-age children from a blended family.
‘She’s a great mother’
After Goldman spoke, Flowers’s husband, Ceddric Pittman, testified that he had no concerns about Flowers caring for the children.
“She’s a great mother,” he said.
Pittman’s mother, Valarie Pittman, also testified on Flowers’s behalf.
Valarie Pittman testified that she had custody of the children for 10 months because of a Florida Department of Children and Families case. During that time, Flowers visited the home every day. The children’s grandmother added that she had no concerns about the defendant caring for the children now.
“She was there to help me with her kids,” said Pittman. “She was there till—to do what Mom does. She was there every day.”
State says investigation showed no genetic problem
Two more family members spoke on Flowers’s behalf. One of them corroborated Goldman’s claim that two children in the family died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Assistant State Attorney Ryan King said he was unaware of any genetic component to the victim’s death.
“I would just comment,” he told Judge Colaw, “that based on the investigation, there’s no evidence to suggest that this was some sort of syndrome or that there was anything other than what had occurred. Namely, in January, with the first twin, the defendant was feeding the child, fell asleep, and essentially awoke to find the child in a situation where the child had asphyxiated that caused death. Then, one month later, essentially to the day on February 22nd, the same thing happened. When law enforcement arrived, the defendant actually said, ‘It happened again.’ She fell asleep, causing smothering asphyxiation.”
Colaw reduced Flowers’s total bond from $150,000 to $50,000. The defendant later posted bond and was released from jail.
