A Nashua woman was arrested Friday and charged with the death of her 3-year-old daughter, according to New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster’s office.
Katlyn Marin, 25, was charged with second-degree murder for “recklessly causing the death of her daughter, Brielle Gage,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement Saturday.
Marin allegedly assaulted Brielle multiple times on or about Nov. 24 through Nov. 25, demonstrating “an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” Foster’s office said.
Nashua police responded to 14 Oak St. at about 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 25, after receiving a medical call about the girl, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. Brielle was taken to a hospital and later declared dead, officials said. The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma, and the death was considered a homicide, the attorney general’s office said on Dec. 5.
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“My family and I are extremely relieved that Katlyn Marin has been arrested for my granddaughter’s murder,” Sharon Boucher, Brielle’s paternal grandmother, said in a statement Saturday.
Boucher, of Manchester, N.H., thanked the police and the attorney general’s office for their determination and support, adding: “We hope that in the end, justice is truly served for my beautiful granddaughter, Brielle, who didn’t deserve to die in such a horrific manner.”
Boucher established a memorial Facebook page and a GoFundMe account to pay for Brielle’s funeral costs.
Five children, all under the age of 10, were living in the house at the time, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said in a brief telephone interview. According to Boucher, the other four children are Brielle’s half-siblings.
Boucher said she believed Michael Rivera, 31, the father of at least one of Marin’s other children, was her live-in boyfriend. She said she would not comment on Brielle’s father, who was not identified.
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Emerson Portes, a neighbor, said he would see the children in the street when he drove home from work but didn’t know the family. Marin and her family had moved into the neighborhood in the past few years, said Portes, who has lived there since 1997. He said he was shocked by the news.
Troubled by the circumstances surrounding her granddaughter’s death, Boucher said she intends to propose legislative changes to administrative rules governing the New Hampshire Division for Children Youth & Families’ authority in abuse and neglect cases.
The Division for Children Youth & Families in April had reported possible abuse of an 8-year-old boy at 14 Oak St., Nashua police said in a May 6 statement on their website. The boy had bruising on various parts of his body, the police statement said. Detectives alleged that the 8-year-old was being physically abused by Marin and Rivera, as was a 6-year-old boy who had no visible injuries, police said.
Rivera and Marin were taken into custody May 5. Rivera was charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one count of simple assault. Marin was charged with one count of second-degree assault and one count of simple assault.
The children were placed temporarily in foster care.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Boucher said: “We want to bring awareness to the issue of child abuse and how [the Department of Health and Human Services] and the court system failed my granddaughter. She was returned to her mother last summer by family court — while felony child abuse charges were still pending against her mother and the mother’s boyfriend.”
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The N.H. Division for Children Youth & Families operates under the Department of Health and Human Services.
Marin is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in the Ninth Circuit — District Division Court in Nashua, Strelzin said.
Jennifer Smith can be reached at jennifer.smith@globe.com.