NC Mother Charged With An Unthinkable Crime Against Her Three Children
GREENSBORO, NC – Back in 2022, Greensboro Police Department responded to a house fire to find three children dead inside. Surveillance footage determined that there was only one suspect in their death: their own mother.
Greensboro police charged Brandi Sturdivant, 29, on Monday (March 11) with three counts of second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of three of her children on Dec. 12, 2022.
On that date, a home on Grimsley Street in Greensboro caught fire sometime before 8 a.m., and three children, a four-year-old and a set of one-year-old twins, were trapped inside, ultimately dying of carbon monoxide poisoning from the fire.
On Jan. 27, 2023, the mother of the three children, Brandi Sturdivant, was charged with three counts of felony child abuse. Police say that the children were home alone when the fire broke out.
Sturdivant, who was already in jail when the murder charges were filed, was scheduled for a court appearance on the new charges on Tuesday.
Dec. 12, 2022
Multiple neighbors who were up on the morning of Dec. 12, 2022, told police they had not seen Sturdivant’s car in the driveway at the Grimsley Street home before 6:30 a.m. when a neighbor leaving for work said they did not see the mother’s car at the home.
Ring camera video obtained from one of the neighbors shows the home with no car in the driveway around 7:45 a.m.
Just a few minutes later, around 7:48 a.m., a neighbor returning home from work saw smoke and fire at the home.
At 7:52 a.m., another neighbor got a knock at the door as Sturdivant looked for help. Ring camera video shows her car in the driveway.
Multiple 911 calls were received about the fire starting around 7:54 a.m., and the Greensboro Fire Department arrived on the scene to a fully-involved fire at 7:58 a.m.
Investigators say that Ring camera footage showed Sturdivant driving her car into the cement barriers at the dead-end of Grimsley Street and making a three-point turn just after 8 a.m., where police made contact with her a moment later. She was taken to the hospital.
Relatives of Sturdivant and the children arrived on the scene and talked with investigators, telling them that Sturdivant had six children, but the oldest did not live with her at the home on Grimsley Street. They also told investigators they had filed multiple complaints with Child Protective Service, with the complaints ranging from bad living conditions to abandonment and non-supervision.
Someone told investigators that around two months prior, Sturdivant told them she left all the children at home alone so she “could go out at night.”
Interviewing Sturdivant while on the scene on the same day, documents allege she told them that she and all five of the children slept in the master bedroom.
She said she did not run the baseboard heat in the winter, instead using a stove in the living room to heat the home. She told investigators that she believed the stove may have been the source of the fire.
An autopsy revealed one child had cocaine in their system at the time of death, and Sturdivant allegedly told investigators where she kept her cocaine in the home. Sturdivant was charged with two additional counts of felony parole violation on top of the three counts of felony child abuse.
Prior complaints
According to the warrant, the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services (GCDHHS) had received several complaints about Sturdivant dating back to 2016.
Complaints in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and two in 2021 were noted as “unknown complaint, case closed.”
In September of 2022, Greensboro Police Department charged Sturdivant with misdemeanor child neglect stemming from a situation where one of the toddler-aged twins was found covered in feces. GCDHHS removed the children from the home for 8 days but returned them and closed the case.
In November 2022, an unknown person complained about the children being unsupervised. At the time of the fire, GCDHHS was still investigating this case.
In addition to a complaint filed by the police after the fire, a total of nine complaints were filed with GCDHHS.
Sturdivant is facing three counts of second-degree murder in addition to felony parole violations and three counts of child abuse.
This article first appeared on WGHP.
Photo credits:
Sturdivant mugshot (Guilford County Sheriff’s Office)
