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Published: Mar 27, 2008 04:24 PM
Modified: Mar 27, 2008 04:30 PM
WILSON.NE.032708.LSB
Jamie Lee Wilson is directed to her seat as she enters the Orange County Courtroom to enter a guilty plea for causing the death of a child.--Hillsborough--Thursday, March 27, 2008. Staff Photo by Leslie Barbour

Babysitter pleads guilty in scalding death

HILLSBOROUGH - Jamie Lee Wilson pleaded guilty today in the December 2005 scalding death of her two-year-old goddaughter, whom Wilson was babysitting.

Wilson, 23, will serve 31 to 40 years in state prison on charges of second-degree murder, child abuse, inflicting serious injury and first-degree kidnapping.

More than 20 people close to Briana Faucette's family sat in an Orange County courtroom this afternoon, some dabbing at tears and holding back sobs.

Wilson had prepared to make a statement and then was not able to deliver it. She asked an assistant public defender to speak for her.

"If I had a chance to let her live and me die, I would do it in a second," Wilson said in the statement. "I was the one who was supposed to protect her."

Authorities revealed today that Wilson had been angry when the child woke up crying after having vomited and soiled herself.

Wilson submerged her in a tub of water that may have been as hot as 140 degrees.

Briana Faucette suffered "full-thickness" burns on most of her body from the waist down when she was held in scalding water, an autopsy in the child's death said.

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