After 3.5 hours of deliberations, an Ector County jury decided Friday that an Odessa woman “intentionally and knowingly” murdered her 8-year-old adoptive daughter by making her jump on a trampoline for hours without food or water on a hot August day in 2020.
Ashley Schwarz will receive an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole for capital murder of a child under 10. She was also convicted of two counts of injury to a child and the punishment phase will begin Monday for those counts in Ector County District Court Judge John Shrode’s courtroom.
Before rendering its verdict, the jury re-watched several minutes of law enforcement officers’ body cam footage and asked for Jaylin Schwarz’s autopsy report.
According to court testimony, police and fire personnel were summoned to the home of Ashley and Daniel Schwarz on Locust Avenue shortly before 2 p.m. Aug. 29, 2020, about an unresponsive child.
Ashley Schwarz, 37, testified Daniel, 47, found Jaylin unresponsive in the backyard.
When Daniel brought her in, she said Jaylin was wheezing and they stripped her and sprayed her with water to cool her down. Daniel began CPR after they realized she no longer had a pulse and she immediately called 911, Ashley told jurors.
Several first responders testified Jaylin was already showing signs of rigor mortis and lividity when they arrived and a forensic pathologist testified pictures taken at the scene show the child suffered a sunburn after death and was already starting to decompose.
The couple was indicted in October 2020 on three charges: capital murder of a person under 10, injury to a child intentionally causing serious bodily injury and injury to a child intentionally causing serious bodily injury by omission.
Daniel Schwarz, who sat through his wife’s entire trial, will be tried separately.
Deputy Ector County District Attorneys William Prasher and Carmen Villalobos presented evidence over the course of three days they said showed Ashley Schwarz “intentionally and knowingly” caused Jaylin’s death.
During closing arguments Friday, they reminded jurors Jaylin’s sister, Jayde, testified Ashley forced the girls to jump on the trampoline that day for hours as punishment, never checked on them and never provided them water beyond the two cups they were originally given on a day when temperatures reached 97 degrees.
They argued Ashley was guilty of injury to a child by omission for “failing to provide adequate supervision, shelter, medical care, and/or food and water” and had a legal duty to do so as her legal guardian.
The prosecutors told the jurors the story Ashley and Daniel gave the authorities made no sense.
Villalobos provided a timeline of events to the jurors based on the body cam footage of first responders and court testimony.
According to that timeline, Jaylin was playing on the trampoline at 1 p.m. and playing with the family dogs at 1:15-1:20 p.m. Daniel Schwarz said he found her unresponsive when he took out the trash around 1:30 p.m.
The first officer on the scene said he was dispatched around 1:45 p.m.-1:50 p.m. and she was pronounced dead by paramedics at 1:55 p.m.
Villalobos showed the jury a photo of a dead Jaylin on the bathroom floor, eyes open.
“I ask you is it reasonable to wait 15-20 minutes to call 911 for a child who looks like this?” Villalobos said.
Prasher reminded the jurors the prosecution doesn’t have to prove motive and, in fact, they don’t know why Ashley wanted Jaylin dead. However, he said the evidence showed she either intended to kill Jaylin or had knowledge Jaylin was going to die due to the heat and lack of water.
Prasher played the jurors a body cam video where Ashley told an officer she saw Jaylin “death rolling” with the dogs and suggested she actually saw Jaylin dying. A forensic pathologist said someone who is dying from dehydration gets weak, dizzy, confused and has seizures.
“She saw that little girl dying in agony in that yard and what did she do? She turned around and walked away,” Prasher said.
Nobody dies of dehydration within a matter of seconds or minutes and photos taken that day show there was no shade in the backyard and no water bottles. In fact, the blue water bottles Jayde testified they often used were in the living room when police arrived, the prosecutors noted.
There’s no evidence the girls were wearing shoes that day either and tests conducted afterward showed the ground was at least 150 degrees and the trampoline itself 110 degrees.
Jaylin died long before 911 was called, he said.
“She was out there so long, the sun cooked her,” Prasher said. “How long did that take and then there was the skin slippage. Her skin was rotting off of her. How long did that take?”
The story told by Ashley and Daniel doesn’t make any sense at all when you look at the science, Prasher said.
“Every person in this room…when they took one look at the picture of this little girl knew she was gone and that’d she’d been dead awhile,” he said.
He urged the jury to again look at pictures of Jaylin’s dirty and scraped up hands.
“That is somebody with every ounce of her being fighting for life and they tried to cover it up,” Prasher said.
An emotional Villalobos said that at 30-years-old there have been times when she’s felt smothered by her over-protective mother.
“But I’ve learned that’s what a mom is. That is what a mom does. That is what a mom should be and I may not be a mom, but I do know that the defendant was no mom to those girls,” Villalobos said.
Jurors heard testimony the girls were left with bruises after being struck with a 2X4 paddle on Thursday and disciplined again on Friday, Prasher said. Moreover, Ashley herself testified the girls may have thought they were being punished again that Saturday.
“How much punishment had to have been going on in that house for the girls to have assumed they were being punished that day,” Prasher asked.
Jaylin didn’t die when she had her head shaved as punishment for bullying and she didn’t die of being paddled, but it “shows an ever increasing level of punishment from that defendant to this little girl and the end result? She’s dead,” Prasher said.
At the end of the day Jaylin didn’t drink enough water that day and the responsibility was Ashley Schwarz’s, Prasher said.
Jayde testified they weren’t strong enough to turn on the hose spigot, but maybe they were afraid they’d get into trouble if they did, Prasher said.
Defense attorney Scott Layh argued Jaylin’s death was a tragedy, not murder.
He urged the jury not to leave their common sense at the door and to remember their own childhoods. He told them not to let emotions cloud their judgement and not to let the prosecutors manipulate them.
They kept describing Aug. 29, 2020, as a day with extreme heat, but it was 97 degrees that day, a normal summer day in West Texas, he said.
He reminded the jurors Ashley told authorities she couldn’t pinpoint exactly when certain events transpired that day, but that the girls were given water refills and came in the house for refills.
“You heard nonstop testimony that this was her outdoor child,” Layh said, adding he bets people can find children jumping on trampolines all summer long in West Texas, even without shoes and socks.
He said he’d love to find a parent who hadn’t allowed their child to play outside 4-5 hours on a summer day.
“What they are wanting to do is convict this mom of letting her kids play outside,” Layh said. “There is no evidence whatsoever, none, that there was an intentional act that led to the death of that child.”
Even the way the case was charged shows the prosecutors don’t know what happened that day, Layh said.
One of the injury to a child counts alleges Jaylin died as a result of actions taken by Ashley and the other count alleges she died because Ashley failed to act, he pointed out.
Layh also reminded the jurors there was testimony the girls often brought their water bottles inside to prevent the dogs from getting them. He also reminded them of a video showing a 3-year-old girl turning on the spigot in Ashley’s backyard, the same spigot that was there Aug. 29, 2020, he said.
“The water was right there in front of her,” Layh said.
The defense attorney also reminded jurors there’s evidence Jaylin was born with methamphetamine and alcohol in her system and was exposed to methamphetamine for six years. The medical examiner could not rule out the drugs could have had a long-term impact on Jaylin, he said.
Layh blasted OPD Detective Sam Chavez and CPS Investigator Jessica Wiseman for investigating Jaylin’s death “halfway.” Chavez never bothered to get Jaylin’s CPS records, he said.
“He and Jessica Wiseman caused a three-year nightmare for everyone involved,” Layh said.
The reason Ashley testified Thursday it would be in Jayde’s best interest to be back with her is because Jayde is currently living with her biological mother’s family, Layh said.
Jaylin went through a period where she was having fainting spells and Ashley took her to a cardiac cardiologist and neurologist to figure out why, Layh reminded the jurors.
“She went to such extremes, but she’s a murderer?” Layh scoffed.
Layh also brought up at least two college athletes who died of heat stroke.
“These are not normal events, but they happen,” he said.
Layh also argued there is evidence Jayde was coached on what to say on the stand. The only time she could specifically recall anything was her alleged last words to Jaylin, he said.
“The sooner you jump, the sooner you can come in.”
She was coached to say that so it would appear Ashley was punishing Jaylin, he said.
The defense attorney urged the jury to remember how Jayde reacted when he showed her a binder filled of pictures taken during the three years she and her sister lived with Ashley and Daniel.
“She started remembering how good the life they had with Daniel and Ashley,” Layh said.
The disciplinary measures meted out by Daniel and Ashley were normal measures taken by any parent, he said.
“You don’t jump from a spanking to ‘She must have killed her child.’ It doesn’t work that way. It absolutely doesn’t work that way,” Layh said.
Hindsight is 20-20 and of course she would do things differently, but Ashley Schwarz is “absolutely” not guilty of the charges, Layh said.
