Billy Bob Thornton's Daughter Charged with Murder

June 30, 2009

"[She's] not moving, not reacting to anything…she's got vomit coming out of her mouth."

Those were some of the words believed spoken by the husband of actor Billy Bob Thornton's daughter, 29-year-old Amanda Brumfield, during a 911 call made on Oct. 3, 2008, in an attempt to get medical help for an injured child.  During the approximate seven-minute call, Brumfield can be heard administering CPR to the child while her husband received medical instructions from the 911 operator.

Brumfield, an unemployed bank loan officer, was booked into Florida's Orange County jail Wednesday, June 24, 2009, on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter involving the death of an infant child left in her care last October.  Brumfield is Thornton's oldest daughter by his first wife, Melissa Parish.  Sources say that Thornton and Brumfield have not spoken to each other for years.

Brumfield purportedly told investigators that the 1-year-old female child, Olivia Garcia, Brumfield's godchild, had fallen out of a playpen and injured her head.  According to Brumfield's statement, Olivia had been on top of the playpen when she startled the child by calling out her name.  The child fell 28 inches—afterward, Brumfield said in her statement, Olivia's tongue was bleeding, which Brumfield said she cleaned with a paper towel.  She said that she then played with the child, painted her toenails, fed her fruit snacks and bananas, and that Olivia had seemed happy.  She told police that she then laid Olivia onto a sofa next to her and fell asleep.

Later, she claimed that she had been awakened by a telephone call.  When she went to return Olivia to her playpen, she noticed that her body was limp when she picked her up.  Police sources indicated that the 911 call for help was made some two and a half hours after the child had purportedly fallen.  The police, however, were not buying her account of what had happened.

"It might have been an accident," a police spokesperson said.  "But she had an obligation to get that child [some] care.  For two and a half hours she did not care for that child."

The autopsy on the little girl indicated that she had suffered a fractured skull and had brain injury due to blunt trauma.  Detectives said that Brumfield's account of what happened was not consistent with the child's injuries.

Brumfield's mother, Melissa Parish, told media sources that her daughter was a close friend of the child's mother, and could not have harmed the child and should not have been arrested.

"It's a very tragic situation," Parish said.  "She loved [Olivia] so much and [her death] just crushed her, just devastated her.  She was Olivia's godmother and the mother's best friend.  It's just a horrible situation and it's being made worse…exploding even more just because of who my ex-husband is."

Billy Bob's publicist, Arnold Robinson, explained to CNN that Thornton was estranged from his daughter and has not had any contact with her for a considerable time.  Robinson provided a written statement to the media which said:  "When informed about this situation, he [Thornton] commented that, 'Any time a baby's life is lost is an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to the baby's family and loved ones.'"

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Photo Credits: Associated Press 

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Comments

[reader]

This is tragic however you cannot jump to conclusions. Investigators tend to think they can know everything when it comes to children having accidents but I assure you they cannot. They barely do any investigating. They leave it up to doctors to give them the facts and they use statistics. Statistics convince jurys and get convictions but they are often wrong. Especially when it comes to accidents like these. Cops are lazy anyway. It doesn't sound to me as though this woman would have ever hurt this child on purpose which means it must have been a horrible accident. Accidents still do happen believe it or not even to celebrities and their familys. Doesn't seen like BillyBob is much of a father.