Law&Crime Sidebar - Florida Student's Dorm Baby Death Was a 'Mere Mistake': Defense Expert

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Nineteen-year-old Brianna Moore is accused of giving birth alone in her University of Tampa dorm bathroom, placing her newborn in a trashcan, and causing the baby’s death. But now, in newly filed legal motions and expert reports, the young mother is unveiling a striking potential defense: she didn’t know she was pregnant, panicked during a medical emergency, and the tragedy was an accident. Prosecutors say the evidence tells a very different story—including disturbing text messages and an autopsy indicating fatal injuries. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the latest with criminal defense attorney Matt Mangino.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Grow your own audience today – go to https://www.opus.pro/sidebar for 1 week free plus 50% off the first 3 months of Opus Pro.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The young mother who allegedly killed her baby after giving birth alone in a college dorm bathroom and throwing her newborn in a trash can has shed new light on her potential defense. She didn't know she was pregnant, she panicked, and it was all an accident and mistake. We are diving into new reporting and new legal papers. paperwork about what we can maybe expect the jury to hear as this trial approaches. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Now, as soon as we saw an update in this case, we wanted to get it out to you as soon as possible. And if you're in the content creation game, if you're putting things out in social media, one of the ways that we're able to do that to really share these stories, these clips of these stories so quickly, is we use something called opus clip. Okay, this is an all-in-one AI editor that makes it so easy to cut, create, and upload videos across any platform. Through AI, OpusClip generates B-roll, it reframes footage, and even cleans up audio. It is so easy. You just visit Opus.combeau slash sidebar.

You sign up, you upload, and in minutes, you have perfectly edited clips ready to go for TikTok, Shorts, Reels. Opus Clip is your one-stop shop. And having a tool like Opus Clip means that our producers can get you viral courtroom updates instantly. This is the most powerful tool there is to help you share ideas and edit like a pro. So go to opus.pro slash sidebar to create your videos today. Now, we've talked about Brianna more before, the woman who's accused of manslaughter in connection

with allegedly giving birth alone in her Florida dorm room bathroom and putting the newborn in the trash can. But what we haven't gotten into and what is brand new and what we need to discuss is her potential defense. And that is, by all accounts, this was all unintentional. Let me set the stage before we get into that. So Moore is charged with aggravated manslaughter, child neglect, unlawfully holding and removing human remains, and failure to report a death. And she's looking up to potentially 30 years in prison.

By the way, it was reported that Moore was offered a deal by the prosecutors where she would plead guilty and get sentenced to 20 years in prison with 10 years of probation to follow, but she reportedly turned that down. So her trial is set to begin in March. Now, is that because she thinks she has a good defense? Let's talk about it. So authorities allege, back in April of 2024, while attending the University of Tampa, more than 19-year-old freshman gave birth to a baby girl in the McKay Hall bathroom, which she shared with other students. It reports that others had heard a baby cry.

One woman apparently seeing all the blood in the bathroom called campus police. According to the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office, Moore initially said that all the blood was from her period. But then you go to the next day. when the gruesome discovery was made by the roommates or the dormmates. This is what the charging document says. Quote, Witness 1 was with a friend, Witness 4, inside the dorm room to gather some items for Witness 1. While inside the room, Witness 1 and Witness 4 saw a bloody towel inside the suspect's trash can.

Using a styrofoam container, Witness 4 touched the towel and felt something firm inside. believing this was possibly a baby. Witness 4 picked up the trash bag from the can, walked outside with Witness 1 and alerted Campus Safety. Witness 1 and Witness 4 were joined by Witness 2 before Campus Safety arrived. Campus Safety opened the towel in the presence of Witness 4 and found a deceased infant. Now, the autopsy would reportedly conclude that this newborn girl had several broken ribs.

this was along the spine, that she had small hemorrhages in her lungs, and her cause of death was determined to be asphyxia due to compression of the torso. Moore did at least apparently two interviews with police in which she really couldn't explain the injuries. She allegedly said, again, that she didn't know she was pregnant, that she just woke up, not feeling good, went to the bathroom, realized that she was in active labor, and says that the baby cried for a few seconds, and then went quiet, and she wrapped her in the towel. In fact, by the way, so that's what she allegedly said. And I will tell you, here is a sampling of what she had to say in her discussion with detectives.

Can you tell me about the baby? The baby? Listen, you're very smart. I know this. You're a biology person, okay? So you know all that. you know about DNA you know all those things okay we have a very young baby right now right outside your room you had quite your ordeal it sounds like yesterday morning in the bathroom for a few hours okay listen we're not judging at all on this okay people can get in

over their heads sometimes they're not sure what to do okay but just a Let's just be honest, okay? Basically, first of all, I did not even know that I was pregnant. Okay. And then I just woke up not feeling good yesterday morning. So I went to the bathroom, I was puking, whatever, and then, yeah. But after like a few seconds, it was dead. was dead um how long did the baby cry for because I know all the roommates and

sweetmates all heard the baby crying how long I would say like five seconds maybe five seconds are crying something around that is okay did um did you take the baby back to bed for you for a short time period I was in the bath I just stayed in the bathroom you just stayed in the bathroom if you could do it again what would you do Probably when I started feeling back, probably go to the hospital. But once I thought that I was in labor, I was like, I can't afford, first of all, to have a baby at the hospital. And I was like, I just, I got some panic. I didn't know what to do.

And then I was like, okay, well, if it makes it, then I can just take it to the hospital and surrender the baby. Because you can do that, can't you? I can't you? You can't? Yeah, that's what I had in my head that I was going to do. But then I just didn't. It just didn't seem alive. So I didn't.

Can I ask why you wouldn't, or didn't call that one? Because I was scared. And I didn't want anyone to know. And it's just, I don't know. I just got scared and panicked and I don't know. But now I want to talk about. But now I want to talk about the defense, okay? So according to police, Moore was pregnant when she arrived on campus.

But Moore said she had no idea, admitted that she may have been in denial. Moore reportedly admitted to police that she sat with the baby for a while in the bathroom, took a shower, fell asleep for around an hour, apparently told Tampa police that she believed the baby died not long after it was born, says that she was shocked, panicked, and that she allegedly ended up putting the dead child in a trash can. So now I want to get into the defense. argument, but I'm not going to do it alone. I want to bring on criminal defense attorney,

former prosecutor Matt Mangino. Matt, thank you so much for coming back here on Sidebar. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Jesse. So I want to start here. Moore's attorneys, they filed what's known as a motion in limine, this pretrial evidentiary motion about what can and can't be introduced during a trial, what can't be heard by a jury, what could be heard by a jury. And this is about introducing mental health testimony for a very specific. limited purpose, state of mind. I'm going to read directly from the motion. It says, quote, the defense intends to introduce narrowly tailored expert testimony explaining how

the defendant perceived and interpreted events during the events surrounding the incident underlying this case. The evidence is offered to assist the jury in evaluating the totality of the circumstances surrounding the defendant's conduct, which expressly recognized by Florida law. The defense is not raising legal insanity and does not seek to introduce testimony that the defendant lacked the capacity to form intent. Florida does not recognize diminished capacity outside the insanity framework. However, culpable negligence must be determined upon the facts and the totality of the circumstances and each particular case.

Matt, that's a lot of legalese. What does it mean? Well, what it means is, you know, she's charged with aggravated manslaughter and you have to show culpable negligence, okay? a blatant disregard for the safety of another person, in this case, a newborn. And so because of that, this opens the door to try to bring in this expert testimony with regard to her state of mind. What was she going through at the time? And the defense is alleging that this is a cryptic pregnancy and that she didn't know she was pregnant.

And in fact, she didn't realize she was having a baby until she's, you know, in labor, in pain, laying on the floor in her dormitory bathroom. And so she was scared. She didn't know what was happening. She didn't know how to react to that. And that's all important in defending this, this culpable negligence under this aggravated manslaughter charge. Let's explore that a little bit more. It says the defense's experts will not testify that Ms. Moore was unable to form intent. Instead, the testimony will address her psychological responses to acute stress and how the diagnosed condition affects cognition and conduct relevant to the specific defense of mistake, a recognized defense to allege reckless or willful.

criminal misconduct. Under the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment, criminal defendants enjoy the right to present such reliable and exculpatory evidence and witnesses in their defense. This right is incorporated through the 14th Amendment and made applicable in all state prosecution. So, Matt, can you explain that a little bit? They're now saying, right, this was evidence of a mistake, right? Didn't realize what was going on. It's a tragedy. And through the Constitution, she has a right to present this defense? Well, that's it. That's an interesting way to frame, okay?

Because, you know, normally when we hear about the confrontation clause in the United States Constitution, we're talking about being able to confront people who are making allegations against you, people who are accusing you of a crime. In this situation, it's kind of turning the Constitution on its head a bit by saying, hey, not only do we have the right to confront people who have evidence against us, we also have the right to present evidence to counter that evidence that the prosecution or the state is going to present against us. So, you know, it's kind of a twist on the confrontation clause.

But I think it's a good argument because of the circumstances in this case, specifically what the charges are and what needs to be proven in terms of those charges, that this individual has the opportunity to present evidence about their state of mind, what they were thinking, what was going on in this situation. And it's really, if you think about it, you know, as we said, a cryptic pregnancy, although it's not common, it's not unheard of. And could you imagine, if you're the defense, trying to explain to a jury, what this 19-year-old was going through when she discovered she was pregnant only when she went into labor by herself in her dorm bathroom. It makes that state of mind so important to this defense.

And it will be a fact issue if that's true, if she's being honest about that. And I'll get into that a little bit more. Just generally, before we get into more specifics here, have you seen a mistake defense work in the sense? The case is completely thrown out. The judge completely dismisses the charges or goes to trial and a defendant is found not guilty, whether it's in relation to a pregnancy case or another case. You've seen this actually be asserted and either the charges are dismissed or someone's found not guilty?

I've seen it asserted not with the result of a dismissal of the case, but I've seen it raised where the courts have permitted evidence to be submitted with regard to that. issue of mistake. And, you know, again, we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about one. First, are you going to have the opportunity to even present that defense? And secondly, if you do have the opportunity to present it, would be successful. So there's two sort of thresholds or hurdles. First, can I even present this? Second, would be successful. So let's get into this a little bit more now before even get into who's going to be called and what they might testify to or potentially called just another thing that they're asking for in this filing is

they're asking for a specific instruction to be read to the jury about this quote you've heard testimony regarding the defendant's mental health condition this evidence is admitted solely for the purpose of explaining the defendant's perceptions and state of mind at the time of the incident you may not consider it as evidence that the defendant lacked the capacity to act willfully or recklessly florida law does not recognize diminished capacity as the defendant defense, except in cases involving legal insanity. So that's what they were hoping the judge would read to the jury when this trial ultimately happens. Okay. Now I want to get a little more specific into this defense because it's being reported by the Tampa Bay Times that the defense

is citing an expert in nursing and midwifery, someone named Lillia Passman, who apparently concluded that the evidence in this case doesn't support that Moore intended to hurt or kill her baby girl, but that she made a series of bad decisions that were caused by extreme stress, that she didn't know what was going on, that she panicked, that this little girl died as a result of an accident, that this was not the result of child neglect or deliberate, willful harm. Passman apparently wrote in her report that Ms. Moore's actions are more consistent with a mere mistake, a tragic unintentional event occurring during a medical emergency for which she was wholly unprepared. And when it comes to, okay, well, how do you explain the baby's injuries

that I mentioned before? Well, Passman apparently said it's possible that the rib fractures happened during the birth process and that the baby fell onto the bathroom floor, that the baby's breathing could have been impacted by bodily fluid. So in other words, this baby needed medical help, but it doesn't mean that more committed a crime. And she writes in a report, while her decisions were medically unsafe, they appear driven by confusion and panic rather than by gross negligence or purposeful harm. Matt, you have this testimony of this registered nurse practitioner who is assisted in reportedly more than 2,000 births. A, should this testimony be allowed into evidence? Should a jury hear it? And B, is it effective? Well, Jesse, that goes back to what we

were discussing that the court has to decide if this testimony, you know, frankly, is relevant. Is her state of mind, you know, relevant? Because she's charged with aggravated mass locker. And, you know, this is not an accusation of intentional death. They're not arguing that she intentionally killed the newborn. They're arguing that she was culpably negligent. She had a disregard for the health and safety of this newborn that caused the newborn's death. And it deals particularly with people who are more vulnerable, like the elderly, in this

case, a newborn certainly as vulnerable as you can get. And so, you know, the idea that her state of mind is really relevant to that is is questionable. The court has to decide. Does her state of mind make a difference here? Because this is not an allegation of an intentional killing. Do they have to prove more than, hey, she just didn't call 911. She didn't call a doctor. It has to be more than that in order to find her guilty of manslaughter? Not necessarily. I mean, you know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, did her conduct or her omission rise to the level of palpable negligence that did her conduct rise to the level where it put it was an extreme indifference to human life to an obviously very vulnerable

person this newborn child now according to the tampa bay times the defense also wants to call dr deborah nutson gonzalez so this is a sarasota psychiatrist a professor at the morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida, and she specializes in the mental health of pregnant and newborn mothers. Now, her findings in this case haven't been publicly released, but considering they want to call her or allegedly call her, Matt, what can we expect her testimony to be if her specialization is what is going on in the mind of a newborn mother or a pregnant mother? Yeah, that's interesting. As I was reading the news reports myself. I mean, this is a woman on the one hand, a 19-year-old girl who's suggesting

that she didn't know he was pregnant, okay? She didn't realize she was pregnant until she's on the floor in labor in her dorm room. So, you know, how does this expertise of the mental health of women who are pregnant, how does that become relevant here? unless she's going to speak with regard to that very specific period of time when, one, she realizes she's pregnant, two, she has this child alone in her dorm room, and three, he holds the child until the child stops crying and is ultimately dead, which she knows pretty rapidly because she wraps her in a towel and puts her in her dorm room. So, you know, I'd be anxious to see how that testimony would affect or impact the defendant in this case.

And how relevant is, I mean, I imagine it's very relevant to what caused the baby's death, right? You know, they talk about these injuries while she's saying, well, it could have been from the birthing. This other expert potentially says it was happening during the birthing process, she fell on the floor, maybe it was the fluid. Obviously, if she was giving birth in a hospital, these issues wouldn't happen. but does the prosecution fight this? Does the prosecution put in their own expert to talk of the medical examiner? Do they bring in their own mental health expert? Do they say, okay, yeah, the baby might have died from the fluid.

The baby might have died from falling in the floor, but it was the mother's fault. It was the mother's fault. We wanted to debate whether she held her too tight or she deliberately. I mean, that becomes the question is what does the prosecution fight here? Do they just cross-examine these witnesses about mental health of the mother? they say, we don't even have to. This proves our point. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, well, obviously, they're going to have a medical examiner that's going to testify to the cause and manner of death. And in this instance, you know, they've conducted an autopsy.

They're able to make those types of determinations. And it's obviously a homicide is the manner of death in this case. So I think what the prosecution does, is you can fight this whole state of mind situation if you can show through some evidence that you've accumulated during this investigation that she knew she was pregnant yeah so so you know that's you know once you can show that she knew she was she was pregnant then her state of mind you know her mental health really doesn't have anything to do with this case any longer because she knew what was going to happen. And she may have known it for months. Do you think that that's a viable explanation that she didn't know that she was pregnant? Perhaps this idea that she didn't,

wasn't experiencing symptoms, didn't experience a weight game. Because I think the last time that we talked about more here on Sidebar, to give everybody a sense of what we're talking about, it was reported that the defense also wanted to bring in the expert testimony of Dr. Nicole Graham, a forensic neuros physicist. And the state, deposed Dr. Graham in May, included a transcript from the conversation or the interview in their filings, where Dr. Graham discussed what a mild disassociative state is like. Quote, it is a bit of a disconnect from reality, but not in the psychotic sense where you're misperceiving reality, but in the sense in which your emotions and your cognitive thought

processes aren't aligned with how you would typically act in day-to-day functioning. We might see people in a disassociative state as a response to trauma, where they do have gaps in their memory, or they have, like, perceptual disturbances. Sometimes people report feeling being disconnected from the situation, so they feel as though they're not even in their own body. And during the deposition, Dr. Graham reportedly said of more. She described herself as being numb, that she kind of just didn't feel anything. And likewise, in the reports immediately surrounding that time,

had described her likewise as being numb or flat, or the presentation wasn't consistent with the severity or reality of the allegation of what she had gotten herself into. So Matt, there's this next issue, right? She didn't even understand what was going on. She was in a disassociative state. She didn't realize that she was pregnant because of that. So you couple, I mean, again, this trial feels like it's going to be quite long. If now you're getting into this other concrete issue about did she even know she was pregnant, what was her physical conditions? Can they prove the body was changing over time in a way where she would notice it? Was she having symptoms? But also this other thing, like was she in a

this associative state. Well, you know, this is going to be a battle of experts, ultimately, if, in fact, the court permits these experts to testify during trial because, you know, the number one thing is the judge has to decide, you know, how far does defense, can the defense go, you know, what do they have to support these expert opinions? And are they all, relevant to this case based on what the specific charges are in this case. But here, I mean, obviously they have resources at their disposal of the defense and they're using those resources to try to bring as much information to this jury if they're permitted to, to frankly, you know,

cloud the issue. You know, it's always about, you know, credibility, And it's proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if you have so much of this expert testimony floating around in front of this jury, you know, is it enough to create a job in this instance? You mentioned before. I'm going to say one of the things that might complicate this is when authorities got their hands on digital evidence from Moore's phone. They found disturbing messages. Quote, on September 13th, 2023, the defendant, this is according to authorities and they're filing. On September 13, 2023, the defendant sent multiple text messages back and forth with a contact in her phone labeled Qasim. These texts are part of a much larger chain of text

messages. However, the messages relevant to this motion occur only on September 13th, 2023. So in September of 2023, more, right, would arguably already have been pregnant, although whether she knew or not, that's what we're talking about. That's up for debate. I'm going to read you some of these. I have to warn you highly disturbing, very unpleasant. But in the messages, Moore and Kassim are allegedly talking about what are sometimes referred to as morning after pills or abortion pills. So Kassim calls them Plan C and says, crazy. Moore replies, hey, man, sometimes you need a Plan C. Now, Kassim writes, Plan A was condoms.

Plan B was the pill. Plan B was to kill the kid, to which Moore says, or allegedly says, plan C is my favorite. again, to kill the kid. Now, an emotion to have the text included, as evidence at trial, the prosecution wrote, the September 13th, 2023 text messages are relevant. They very clearly lay out a willingness to kill a baby if other means of contraception have failed. Although intent to kill is not an element of the charged offenses, there is an intent element inherent in the willful failure to provide care of a child neglect charge and consciously doing an act or following a course of conduct that gives rise to culpable negligence for an aggravated manslaughter charge. So,

Matt, prosecutors say those messages reflect the state of mind issue that we're talking about. Yeah. And those messages would be quite damaging to the defense because if a jury accepts that those messages were a clear understanding of what her situation was and how she might handle it, it blows everything, all the other defenses. out the window for the defense because because the idea that she was in this panic state just doesn't, you know, ring true when she knows she's pregnant and now she's in labor and she wants to say, well, I didn't understand what was going on. That whole defense is out the window. If this information can come to the jury and they believe, in fact, that it was

her state of mind at the time to terminate her personal. pregnancy by essentially killing the newborn. Now, look, I mentioned before that she reportedly turned down a deal 20 years in prison. You know, you're taking this to trial now based on what I've laid out as potential witnesses, potentially may come into evidence, potential defenses. You think it was a wise move to turn down that kind of deal? I mean, 20 years is still a lot. Yeah, I mean, 20 years is a lot of time.

She's a 19-year-old girl. the defense and defense counsel must feel strongly about the defense that they've put together in the manner that they're moving forward. But ultimately, you know, there's a thing, and we all know about it, Jesse, and it's the trial penalty, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I mean, you get a plea deal and you turn it down, and you go to trial and you get convicted, You can expect that you're going to get substantially more time than was originally offered to you. And the prosecution is certainly going to pound away at that or plea bargaining means nothing if you get the same thing after trial that you would have got up when you were negotiating a plea.

So, you know, you put a lot on the line by going to trial in a case like this. And to be clear, we went on the court website and regarding what we initially talked about, this motion in limine, right? to allow this specific expert testimony and that specific instruction to be read by the judge to the jury. All that it says all we can find is as motion eliminate by defense and diminished capacity, granted in part, denied in part, so we don't really know what was decided.

We can speculate, maybe there's one part, I'm not really sure, but we will say what develops from this and what comes out in anticipation of trial. It's a really, really, sad case. It's one I've seen before. I've seen outcomes on both ends, and it's very fact-specific. So, Matt Mangino, thank you for coming on. Thank you for explaining the legal complexities that are involved in a case like this, but really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you, Jesse. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.