DA drops charge in boy's exposure death

ESTANCIA, N.M. (KRQE) - A district attorney Wednesday cited a California woman's mental illness in dismissing the case alleging she abandoned her naked toddler at night in a field where he died from exposure.

Seventh District Attorney Clint Wellborn said that he would have a hard time convincing a jury that Diana Willis was sane during the night she lost track of her son in the field near Encino.

"She suffered from paranoia schizophrenia," Wellborn said during a news conference in Estancia.

Willis said she believed spiders were attacking her and her son that night and she was trying to get away from them. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a charge of child abuse resulting in death.

Wellborn said her attorney had hired an expert who concluded that she suffered from paranoia schizophrenia and that she was predisposed to it because her entire family also suffered from the mental illness.

Wellborn said even an expert whom he had hired had come to the same conclusion and that investigators on-scene also believed she was suffering from a mental illness.

He said all those witnesses would have testified in court during a trial, and that's why he filed the dismissal of charges.

In September 2007 searchers spent 36 hours scouring the rugged terrain near where Willis's car had been left before finding the body of 15-month-old Richie Willis Brown in a field south of Encino.

He was naked and had died from exposure.

Willis was found earlier naked at a nearby state transportation yard. She told investigators she stopped her car, removed their clothes because spiders were attacking them and fled to the field.

No one knows why Willis, who lived in California at the time of the incident, was in New Mexico that night.

An acquaintance of Willis told KRQE News 13 Willis had already moved out-of-state after learning the case against her had been dropped. She had been required to stay in New Mexico until her trial and was living in Albuquerque.

In a statement her attorney said Willis has suffered over the loss of her son.

The sad irony, one expert said, is that Richie Willis Brown did not die because his mother neglected him.

In fact, it was the total opposite.

"She did not realize that she was actually placing the baby in danger, and actually felt that she was protecting him from the spiders," Wellborn said.