Prentice: loving mom or killer?

The jury is deliberating the fate of Donna Prentice, the former Huntington Beach woman accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter, Michelle, nearly 40 years ago.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin told jurors Nov. 20 that Prentice is equally responsible whether she murdered the girl herself, or aided and abetted in the crime.

“You are not going to get all your questions answered. That does not mean the case had not been proved without a reasonable doubt,” Yellin told the jury, alluding to Prentice’s first trial, in which jurors were unable to reach a verdict.

Yellin began his closing statements the same way he began 10 days prior, by showing the courtroom a grainy photograph of Michelle.

He reminded them that Michelle was more than just an image; she was a living, breathing child who loved her brother — “and probably her mom, too,” Yellin said.

He then pointed at Prentice, telling the jury that Prentice did not love her daughter.

In contrast, Alternate Public Defender Ken Norelli described how Prentice was a good mother with no criminal record, who still lived in hope that she would see her daughter again.

“She’s always going to set a place at the table for Michelle in her mind,” he said.

Yellin deflected that statement, countering that if the defendant thought about her daughter so much, she would have tried to find her when she left her then-boyfriend, James Michael “Mike” Kent, in Illinois and moved back to Orange County.

Cycle of abuse

Norelli chose to focus the potential blame on the deceased Kent, whom he repeatedly called a “psychopath” during his heated statements.

He described Prentice as a victim of longtime abuse and manipulation, saying she often showed signs of hope that Michelle was still alive during the investigation.

Norelli said it was impossible to tell exactly how Michelle died.

“I don’t know what act [of violence] you are all supposed to agree on,” he told the jury. Without the act, he argued, they were left to speculation.

Norelli urged the jury to prevent “miscarriages of justice.”

“Proposing different theories doesn’t make up for a lack of evidence,” he said.

He claimed Prentice had no motive to harm Michelle, although the jury was later reminded that a motive was not necessary to convict Prentice.

“This is a case about how she reacted — reacted — to a suspicious circumstance by her abuser, after the beginnings of a disappearance,” he said.

Norelli said Kent may have lied about burying Michelle in Williams Canyon in order to mitigate his own future sentence, and said many of Yellin’s arguments were purely speculative.

“There is no evidence — none — to attribute any of these actions to Donna Prentice. None,” he said.

Avenues of culpability

Yellin presented six possibilities of Michelle’s fate to the jury.

Three he described as unreasonable: that Michelle was alive or that her mother knew or believed she was alive; that Michelle died of natural causes; and that Kent killed the girl himself with no help from Prentice.

He gave three others as valid possibilities: that Prentice killed Michelle by herself; that she did so in corroboration with Kent; or that she gave Kent the body to get rid of after the murder.

“You cannot allow unanswered questions to stand in the way of justice. … Under the law, you don’t have to know who the actual slayer is,” he said.

Possible verdict options include second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter; the latter possibility was requested by the defense.

Options to convict with the murder charge include that Prentice committed the act herself, aided and abetted Kent in the act, or acted as Kent’s conspirator in the murder.

CANDICE BAKER may be reached at (714) 966-4631 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.