Leanna Roper (center) listens with her defense team to the announcement of the verdict of her 2021 criminal trial in Butler Circuit Court.

MORGANTOWN – A woman serving probation following a second-degree manslaughter conviction in her toddler son’s death avoided jail Friday after a judge declined to revoke her probation.

Leanna Roper, 47, of Bowling Green, was found guilty of the charge at a 2021 trial in Butler Circuit Court.

Her son, 4-year-old Clark Cantrell, was found drowned May 1, 2018, in the swimming pool outside the home where he lived with his mother and sister.

A jury convicted Roper, siding with the prosecution’s theory that she consciously disregarded a substantial risk by leaving the child unsupervised.

Jurors heard evidence that no barrier was built separating the pool from the door everyone used to enter and exit the home, and Roper had taken her other child to school that morning and was running errands at the time her son drowned.

Four adults and one child were at the home at the time of the death, but there was testimony at trial that they were either asleep in another part of the house or otherwise not tasked with watching Clark.

Roper was sentenced to five years in prison, but was freed on shock probation after serving 53 days on the condition that she give up any appeals of her conviction.

Roper returned to court Friday on two motions by Butler County Commonwealth’s Attorney Blake Chambers to revoke her probation.

The first motion, filed Aug. 5, was rooted in Roper’s efforts to obtain a domestic violence order against her husband in Warren Family Court.

Roper’s petition stated that her husband was armed and dangerous, and at a family court hearing, she testified that she witnessed her husband intoxicated in the home, which Chambers alleged violated the terms of her probation forbidding her from possessing alcohol or firearms.

Chambers filed a supplemental motion to revoke on Aug. 26 in which he said he received information that Roper misrepresented her status as a convicted felon on a job application.

Roper’s ex-husband, Kevin Cantrell, testified that when he learned from an acquaintance who worked at a bottling plant that Roper had gotten a job there, he contacted the employment agency who placed her there.

“I was concerned that she may not be telling people what she should be telling them,” Cantrell said.

An email exchange between Cantrell and a woman at the employment agency indicated that Roper was terminated after it was learned that she checked “no” on an application questioning if she had ever been criminally convicted or pleaded guilty.

The paperwork was not entered into evidence Friday, and Roper testified that she disclosed her criminal conviction when she met with the agency in person.

“I went in and I tried to explain to them exactly what happened from the very beginning, about my son drowning, the trial, being convicted, put on probation. I told them everything,” Roper said, answering a question from her attorney, Alan Simpson.

During questioning from Simpson, Cantrell disclosed that he also contacted a landscaping agency that had hired Roper and attempted unsuccessfully to terminate Roper’s parental rights to their daughter in family court last year.

Regarding the concerns about alcohol or firearms at the property, Roper testified that her now-estranged husband keeps a firearm in his truck as part of his job as an over-the-road truck driver, and that she had a rule that her husband is not to drink around her daughter and that if there were any alcohol on the premises, she suspected it was kept in an outbuilding that he uses on the property.

Kevin Pardue, a Probation and Parole officer who supervises Roper, testified that Roper has always been cooperative with him, allowing home visits and notifying him of changes of address.

Questioned by Chambers, Pardue said that Roper informed him about the firearm and the alcohol she suspected was being kept in an outbuilding, testifying that he told her that she would be in violation if she were in the truck and police found the weapon after pulling over the vehicle, and that alcohol cannot be kept in the home.

Pardue agreed with Simpson’s characterization of Roper as a “model probationer,” testifying that he has not known her to violate the terms of her probation and has not submitted any paperwork to that effect.

“There’s been no issues with her reporting or following directions at all,” Pardue said.

While the court heard no argument Friday, Simpson filed a response on Thursday characterizing the efforts to revoke Roper’s probation as spearheaded by Cantrell, rather than the probation and parole office.

“It is blatantly obvious that Kevin Cantrell will utilize whatever avenue is at his disposal to harass Ms. Roper, and he is utilizing the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office to do so at this time,” Simpson said in his filing. “Kevin Cantrell is the one pushing the Commonwealth for this motion. He testified in a recent hearing in the Warren Circuit Family Court that he was behind this motion getting filed.”

Butler Circuit Judge Tim Coleman declined to revoke Roper’s probation, but said he was “troubled” by the allegations disclosed by Chambers in his filings and through the testimony at the hearing.

“The court takes probation very seriously. It’s a privilege, not a right,” Coleman said. “There doesn’t appear to be any flagrant violations of the probation order … (but) I’m going to tell you I do insist that you follow the rules and regulations of your probation to the letter. I don’t want to see you back up here again.”