Two convicted after Pierce County toddler killed. Does blame stop there?
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- Sarai Brooks, 2, was killed by her mother’s boyfriend in Parkland in 2022.
- Sarai’s family filed a lawsuit alleging the state failed to protect her.
- The civil trial began March 16, 2026, with opening statements.
While two people close to a 2-year-old girl were convicted of crimes for her 2022 killing, a debate began this week in a Pierce County courtroom over whether the child-welfare system also deserved blame.
Trial started Monday in the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Sarai Brooks, alleging that the state and a South Hill daycare failed to protect her. The girl was removed from her mother’s care due to suspected abuse but was returned shortly before she was killed by her mother’s boyfriend.
The financial implications of the civil case could be massive. Attorney Ray Dearie, one of the lawyers representing Sarai’s family, told jurors that the plaintiffs’ legal counsel was seeking $175 million in damages, including for Sarai’s three siblings.
“We’re here because both of (the defendants) didn’t do their jobs,” Dearie said.
Attorneys for the state and Love & Laughter Learning Center disputed allegations of wrongdoing. They emphasized that Sarai’s death was caused by two people: her mother, Jharmaine Baker, and her mother’s boyfriend, Augustino Seu Maile.
“There’s no denying this case is a tragedy,” attorney Melissa Nelson, one of the state’s lawyers, told the jury.
Sarai was discovered dead in her family’s Parkland apartment by a social worker on March 11, 2022. She died from blunt-force trauma to her head, and had bruises from her face to her feet, abrasions on her cheek and lacerations on and in her mouth, The News Tribune previously reported.
Child Protective Services, under the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), took Sarai and her two brothers from Baker in April 2021 due to suspicions of severe abuse, court records show. DCYF learned that Baker was allowing Maile to regularly abuse Sarai, according to the lawsuit.
The children had been declared state dependents when Baker got them back in December 2021 under a court order that placed several conditions on their return, Dearie said. Those conditions required Baker to keep away from Maile, immediately notify law enforcement if Maile showed up or tried to contact her kids, and enroll her children in daycare to put more sets of eyes on them, among other rules.
Baker, who was also abused by Maile and pregnant with his child, didn’t comply with all conditions. That noncompliance should have led to her children being removed from her care once again, Dearie said. Baker denied any contact with Maile, but neighbors reported the pair fought all the time, and Maile was asleep in a bedroom during one DCYF health-and-safety visit, according to Dearie.
Baker also didn’t immediately take her children to daycare, Dearie said. During Sarai’s first two days at Love & Laughter Learning Center, the staff documented two marks on her thigh and an eye bruise, according to Dearie. Daycare staff didn’t report it to DCYF despite having a mandatory duty to report suspected abuse or neglect, he added.
“That was one of the many moments that could have saved Sarai’s life,” he said.
Attorney Mary C. Butler, one of the lawyers representing Love & Laughter Learning Center, suggested the state failed to provide key information to the daycare. Staff knew that the children were in the custody of the state under a dependency order, but Butler said it shouldn’t be inferred that the daycare also should have known a host of other things, including that there was abuse.
Staff chose not to call Child Protective Services because it did not believe there was abuse, and there were no more documented injuries after that, according to Butler. She also said that Baker claimed Sarai bumped her head with a sibling and that the state did not convey to daycare staff that Baker was untrustworthy.
Nelson told jurors that Baker lied to and deceived DCYF about certain things, including contact with Maile, and that the state was unaware of Sarai’s injuries documented at daycare.
“It could not act on what it did not know, what was hidden from it,” Nelson said.
DCYF also did not rely purely on Baker’s word, according to Nelson, who noted that the agency obtained a restraining order in June 2021 to keep Maile from the children.
“DCYF was not oblivious,” she said. “They knew this was a high-risk case.”
Baker took responsibility for not protecting her children but had made progress by December 2021 and done everything asked of her by DCYF, according to Nelson. There were eyes and ears on Sarai leading up to her death, including what Nelson called a “circle of trust” that was composed of social workers, daycare, service providers and legal staff.
That circle didn’t observe abuse, Nelson said, nor did Baker’s friends who had seen Sarai the weekend before she was killed.
Nelson asked jurors to “keep an open mind” as the trial developed.
Maile and Baker, 29 and 21 years old at the time of Sarai’s death, were both charged with her murder.
Maile was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison in July 2024 after pleading guilty to manslaughter and other felonies in a plea deal, The News Tribune previously reported. Baker was sentenced to six years in prison in June 2023 after she pleaded guilty to criminal mistreatment and two counts of second-degree child assault in a plea bargain.
