6/27/14 - A former Fowlerville woman accused in the Florida death of her infant daughter will go to trial in August. 23-year-old Kylee Jean Copeland is charged in Polk County Circuit Court with manslaughter in the death of her 3-month-old daughter Nataley Jade Agee. An August 4th trial date was set, but only if a plea canât be worked out before an August 1st docket call hearing. Copelandâs daughter was found dead in a crib at her home in Lakeland, Florida in September, 2011. An autopsy determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and that the child had been dead for at least eight hours. After that contradicted Copelandâs initial account that she fed her daughter that morning and put her back in the crib, she changed her story and said she dropped the baby, whose head struck the coach, before bouncing to the floor. She said she lied because she didnât want to lose her other children or go to jail. This is not the first incident of child neglect Copeland has been involved in. She and Trevor Agee, the father of her three children, were pulled over by a Michigan State Police trooper in August of 2008 on I-96 near Fowlerville. The trooper saw a baby boy sitting sideways in a car seat with duct tape over his mouth, which Copeland and Agee admitted to placing there to hold his pacifier in place. Authorities declined to press criminal charges and shortly afterwards, the pair moved to Florida to live with Agee's mother. (JK)
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