A 33-year-old mother from Tennessee is suspected of killing her 7-year-old daughter by drowning her in a creek because she had a “rough day” and “wanted time alone.” Authorities revealed that Brandi Nicole Elliot was arrested over the weekend and charged with first-degree murder in the death of baby Piper Elliot.
According to a Hendersonville Police Department news release, officers responded to a complaint of a kid drowning in Drakes Creek, near 200 Sanders Ferry Road, on July 13. The location is approximately 15 miles northeast of Nashville.
Piper was brought to a hospital by emergency responders, but physicians were unable to save her life. She was pronounced dead at 11:45 p.m., officials said.
Detectives responded to the scene and interviewed the victim’s mother, Elliot, about the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s drowning. According to authorities, after being transferred to the police station and read her Miranda rights, Elliot confessed to violently drowning Piper in frightening detail.
Elliot told detectives that “she wanted time alone after having a rough day,” according to a probable cause document. She claimed she left the flat where she and her daughter lived and sat at the bottom of the stairs. That’s when Piper went outdoors to join her mother.
Elliot allegedly said that Piper refused to leave her alone and would not stay in the apartment by herself. According to Elliot, she then took her kid across the street to a greenway alongside Drakes Creek, where they began walking. According to cops, that’s when things started to become bad.
“The defendant stated that since the victim would not give her what she wanted, time alone, that she would give the victim what she wanted,” according to the police report. “The defendant said that she kept the victim underwater ‘like a large mouth bass’ in a shallow location just off the greenway until she felt (the victim) ‘bubbling.’ The defendant alleged that she told the victim to keep silent while holding her underwater.
Elliot later admitted that she realized she had made a mistake and removed her daughter from the water before beginning CPR, but it was too late.
DeAnna Sartain, a family friend who has worked with Elliot for numerous years, told Nashville CBS station WTVF that she could not explain Elliot’s behavior.
“It’s not like the Brandi we knew,” Sartain explained to the station. “I keep analyzing it, and there is nothing. I just don’t understand it.”
Sartain claimed that hours before the drowning, Elliot and Piper went to see Piper’s father in the hospital, and nothing looked unusual.
Elliot is now detained in the Sumner County Jail without bond. She is due to appear in court on Friday for her bond hearing.