Serenity Brown

GLASGOW — A woman charged in connection with a toddler’s death in Barren County entered a guilty plea Monday to a reduced charge.

Serenity Brown, 23, of Lucas, pleaded guilty in Barren Circuit Court to a count of tampering with physical evidence, accepting a plea agreement that reduced her charge from a count of murder and recommended she be placed on pretrial diversion for three years.

Brown and Devin Pierce came under investigation in connection with the death of 19-month-old Tristen Stinson on March 27, 2021.

The child was pronounced dead at T.J. Samson Community Hospital after authorities found him unresponsive at a residence on North Lucas Road.

Tristen was at the time under the care of Brown and Pierce, who was a friend of the child’s mother.

Detective with the Barren County Sheriff’s Office noted suspicious bruising on the child’s head, which led to an autopsy conducted by the Kentucky Office of the State Medical Examiner in Louisville.

“The results of the autopsy determined the child died from blunt impact injuries of the head, and the manner of death was ruled homicide,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release.

A grand jury indicted Pierce and Brown for murder in 2022.

Pierce pleaded guilty earlier this year to a count of second-degree manslaughter and received a seven-year prison sentence.

At Brown’s hearing Monday, she answered a series of questions from Barren Circuit Judge John Alexander indicating that she had all the time she needed to discuss her case with her attorney, Ken Garrett, and was voluntarily pleading guilty to the evidence tampering charge.

Barren County Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner acknowledged the hurdles he would have faced had Brown’s case gone to trial.

“The commonwealth believes at trial that it would be difficult to prove that (Brown) aided in or caused (the death) itself,” Gardner said.

Gardner said there was evidence, though, that after Tristen was taken to the hospital, that Brown called her parents to help her remove marijuana from the house where the child was injured.

Marty Brown and Jessica Brown have pleaded not guilty to tampering with physical evidence.

While on pretrial diversion, Brown will be under the supervision of an officer from the Department of Probation and Parole, and if she completes the diversion without committing any new offenses, the criminal case against her will be dismissed.