DA wants to add charge for Wichita mom accused of starving toddler son to death in 2019
Prosecutors are asking a Sedgwick County judge for permission to amend charges filed against a Wichita mom accused of starving her 2-year-old son to death in 2019.
If the judge grants the request, Brandi Marchant would face a new count of aggravated endangering of a child involving her other son, who was just four months old when the body of Zaiden Javonovich was found face down and bound in pajamas in a playpen on April 11, 2019. Wichita police found the boy dead after going inside of the south Wichita trailer home where the family lived while they were investigating a fight between his parents.
An autopsy report found that Zaiden died from dehydration and malnutrition. He was 31 inches tall but weighed less than 15 pounds at the time — about half the weight of a typical, healthy 2-year-old child. The report also says the way his body was bound — with his sleeves knotted around his upper chest by his throat and tightly swaddled with a blanket — might have also caused the boy to asphyxiate.
His baby brother was in such poor health when police found Zaiden dead that he weighed just eight pounds and was so malnourished that he couldn’t control his neck muscles or regulate his body temperature. The infant also had broken ribs.
More than two years ago, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office charged Marchant and Zaiden’s father with alternative counts of first-degree murder, child abuse and aggravated endangering of a child in connection with Zaiden’s death and child abuse connected to the baby’s neglect. Marchant waived her right to have a preliminary hearing in August 2019 and pleaded not guilty to the charges the following month.
But prosecutors presented evidence that the baby had also been the victim of endangerment during Patrick Javonovich’s preliminary hearing this spring, and the court “found probable cause” to support it, according to a July 16 motion seeking to also charge Marchant with the crime.
The DA’s office has also asked for the court to schedule a preliminary hearing related to the new charge. Prosecutors contend adding the count won’t violate Marchant’s rights because she “had notice of the potential amended charge from both discovery and the Affidavit of Probable Cause,” which lays out much of the law enforcement evidence collected in a case and is used to support an arrest and criminal charges.
The court will hear the matter on Aug. 9, according to court records. Marchant, 25, is being held in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bond.
Patrick Javonovich, 30, is scheduled for an arraignment on Aug. 5. His bond is also $200,000, jail records show.
The probable cause affidavit in Zaiden’s parents’ cases, released in April 2019, says Marchant told police that she would bind Zaiden’s arms inside of his clothes to keep him from crawling out of his crib while she slept. She told police that she put Zaiden face down in his crib the evening of April 10, 2019, went to bed the next morning around 6 a.m., and slept all day without checking on either of her boys. She claimed she didn’t know Zaiden had died.
Patrick Javonovich also hadn’t checked on the children since arriving home from work. Both told authorities they had been feeding the children regularly.
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
