AURORA | A mom whose two toddlers died in a house fire after police say she left them home alone is scheduled to go on trial next week.
Danielle Lynn Brockman faces two counts of child abuse resulting in death for the October 2011 deaths of her two children, Timothy Joseph Ramirez, 3, and Alivia Ramirez, 15 months.
Brockman, who has been in jail since being arrested a few days after the fire, is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 13 in Arapahoe County District Court, according to court records.
At Brockman’s preliminary hearing in 2012, police testified that she left the children alone for more than seven hours on the night they died.
Police said Brockman left the East 13th Avenue home around 9:30 p.m. that night and when she returned around 5 a.m. the following morning, a fire had broken out in the kitchen and the smoke was so heavy she couldn’t get to the children.
Brockman told police she didn’t plan to be out that long, investigators testified. She told police she went to a house party, then the Montview Bar and Grill, then a friend’s house before heading home to find the fire already raging.
Her son was pronounced dead on the way to a nearby hospital after police ripped steel burglar bars from the toddlers’ window to pull them from the home. Alivia died a few days later. Both children died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, investigators said.
The fire started near a stove in the kitchen that malfunctioned, police testified.
Brockman’s trial has moved slowly through the courts since her arrest. A previous trial date last year was delayed in part because Brockman changed lawyers, according to court records.