Danielle Brockman, the mom of the kids who were killed in an apartment fire, was more stoic in court Thursday

7:13 PM, Nov 10, 2011   |    comments
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She appeared again before Judge Ethan Feldman in waist-and-ankle-shackles.

Unlike her last appearance, she did not cry or break down. She blew a kiss toward her mother in the gallery and whispered "I love you."

Her mother refused to comment to 9NEWS about her daughter's charges.

There is a protection order against Brockman, stating she is not allowed to harass witnesses or have contact with people under the age of 18.

With their mother in custody - accused of child abuse - and their father in town after receiving word of the apartment fire, 1-year-old Alivia and 3-year-old Timothy, or T.J. Ramirez, were laid to rest on Friday at 11 a.m. after the tragic fire took their lives. The apartment fire broke out in late October.

Ramirez was in Georgia at the time of the fire.

"I'm still numb from the whole incident," he said on Nov. 4. "I just buried my children."

According to Aurora Police, Brockman had left her two children alone in the house when the fire started in the 12600 block of East 13th Avenue on Oct. 30 . Firefighters were delayed in getting the children out of the home because of security bars on the windows.

Ramirez talked about the funeral with 9NEWS.

"I talked to both of them, like kind of like they were still there. I told T.J., 'Watch your little sister. Take care of your sister.' And I told Alivia, 'Please don't let T.J. get into too much trouble,'" he said. "At the funeral, we released some balloons. Some blue ones and some pink ones. And for some reason, the blue ones just took off, and I said, 'See, there goes T.J., he's taking off already and his little sister is chasing after him.'"

Ramirez says he has not spoken to Brockman much about the fire.

"Not that I don't want to talk about it, it's just - I don't really have anything to say to her," he said. "I think deep down, she knows what she did. She's going to have to deal with that for the rest of her life."

"I'm here to take care of my babies," Ramirez said. "They were very, very happy kids."

He says he does still have questions about what happened the morning of the fire.

"I would ask her, 'I need to know the exact truth, I need to know what happened.' And somehow she would always switch the story," he said. "She said that she had to drive a friend home. And that it was going to be quick, she was driving them home, and coming back home."

Brockman was arrested later that week while driving on Interstate 25 near Highway 7.

"My impression was that if she was in trouble or whatever, she was going to hide long enough to attend the services," Ramirez said.

Many people donated through Wells Fargo to help pay for the funerals for the children.

"I would like to say I appreciate everybody out there who did donate," Ramirez said.

Brockman waived her right to a preliminary hearing within 30 days on Thursday.

Her next court appearance will be Dec. 12 at 9 a.m. to make sure both defense and prosecution are ready for a Jan. 6 preliminary hearing at 1:15 p.m.

(KUSA-TV © 2011 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)