Nurse: Fry Said 'I Couldn't Protect Her From Me'

Kimbery Fry admitted to killing her daughter and said she was "going to jail" the day her daughter was found dead, according to testimony from two employees of South County Hospital.

Fry was admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit on Aug. 11, 2009, after having taken a cocktail of prescription drugs in a failed bid to kill herself. Her husband found their 8-year-old daughter, Camden, dead in her bed that morning. Kimberly Fry is charged with strangling Camden the night before while the gilr threw a temper tantrum over taking a bath.

Barbara Kettle, a patient care technician at the hospital, said she'll "never forget" what Fry told her that night. After telling Kettle she had taken the drugs because she couldn't make her daughter stop screaming and crying, Fry admitted to harming her daughter, Kettle testified.

"She said she sat on her and put her hands over her mouth to make her stop crying," Kettle testified in Washington County Superior Court Tuesday. "She said, 'I'm going to jail or somewhere."

Courtney Picardo, a nurse in the hospital's ICU who said she was attempting to console a "hysterical" Fry that night, corroborated Kettle's testimony that Fry acknowledged hurting her daughter.

"I was her mother. I was supposed to protect her. But I couldn't protect her from me," Picardo testified Fry said.

In earlier testimony Tuesday, former state medical examiner Dr. William Cox testified that he discovered the petechia — defined as reddish or purplish spots containing blood that appear in skin or mucous membranes as a result of localized hemorrhaging — on Camden's chest, neck, shoulder and eyelids, along with a fracture of the hyaloid bone in her neck. The injuries were caused by manual strangulation, Cox said.