Girl, 4, struggles to cope after mother killed her stepsister

CHESAPEAKE

Sadie is 4 and loves dance class. She's won blue ribbons for chickens she helps raise. She enjoys going to the store with "Grammy," her paternal grandmother.

She also has unusual worries when she suffers a cut.

"When Sadie gets a boo-boo, she tries to figure out how much blood can come out of you before you die," said her grandmother, Shari Evans.

Sadie's mother, Brandy P. Sawyer, 22, will be sentenced Friday morning for murdering her stepdaughter, 5-year-old Carly Sawyer. She pleaded guilty in May under a provision that allowed her to admit only that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict her.

Now Sadie lives with Shari, a nurse, and John Evans, a police officer and municipal worker, and their daughter, Jennifer Hopkins, in Hubbard, Ohio. Shari Evans' son, Jorge Hopkins Jr., an Army driver, is Sadie's father.

Carly was the daughter of Brandy Sawyer's husband, Joshua S. Sawyer, 26, from his prior marriage. He received the maximum sentence of life in prison in October for the death of Carly. She had been beaten, starved and tied up some nights in a cardboard box.

He pleaded guilty in the same way as his wife. They told police they were disciplining Carly for soiling herself.

Sadie doesn't say much about her old home life - the Sawyers lived in Chesapeake for about a year and in North Carolina before that - or about Carly. It comes out in bits, Shari Evans said. Like with those boo-boos.

"Sadie says, you know, 'Carly had a bleed,' " Shari Evans said.

Brandy and Joshua Sawyer also had a younger daughter, Abigail, and Anthony, a son born while Brandy Sawyer has been in jail. They live with Joshua's parents in New York.

Sadie talks with her half-siblings weekly by computer hookup.

"They show each other their baby dolls," Evans said. "It's making the best of a bad situation."

The Evans' life changed in June 2009 when the Evans' daughter received a text from Brandy Sawyer, who had kept in touch with the family. Carly had been hurt, Sawyer wrote.

Then Brandy Sawyer was texting that police "think I hurt my own daughter." Later, police would ask for the Evans' daughter's phone to track the text messages.

The surviving children went to foster families until the courts could sort out custody. Sadie went to Ohio a year ago.

She visits a therapist once a month. She, too, came out of her home with bruises from apparent whippings, Shari Evans said. The Evans don't ask many questions.

Sadie talks about her experiences "not as much as you'd expect, but it does come up," Evans said. "She knows that Carly's with Jesus - that's a difficult concept for a child."

Early on, at breakfast: "She looked at me and said, 'Does Carly have corn flakes?' She has a lot of survivor guilt."

And, Evans said, "When we first got her, she thought ketchup was a food - she ate it with a spoon. "

Brandy and Joshua Sawyer declined interview requests in jail. They're not allowed contact with their children, Evans said.

Also awaiting trial in North Carolina is Brandy's younger sister, Dana Leigh Browning. She was accused in November 2008 of failing to report a death and other charges for putting her newborn daughter in the trash and not telling anyone.

The Onslow County Sheriff's Office said that case remains pending. Kristina Hamm, a former roommate of Browning's and friend of Brandy Sawyer's, said she and Sawyer were supposed to testify against Browning.

Hamm said she sometimes watched Carly and Sadie, and was paid by Sawyer with alcohol. Hamm visited the Sawyers a few times after their move to Chesapeake, but nothing aroused her suspicions, other than an encounter about a month before Carly died.

She playfully tried to high-five the young girl.

"She was just like, 'No one touches me,' " Hamm said. "And I was like, 'She never was like that before.' "

"I always tell people that Carly died so that Sadie and her sister could have a better life," Evans said. "Sadie has that. Sadie has everything she needs, and half of what she wants."

Evans said she doesn't recognize the Brandy Sawyer she now reads about or sees in the news, wouldn't have dreamed she was capable of such harm. But she's paying attention, for Sadie's sake.

"At 13, someone's going to have to explain to her what happened," Evans said. "And I need her to trust me."

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-5221, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com