The Long Island mother who is accused of killing her 8-year-old disabled daughter with a poisonous dose of peanut M&M's pleaded not guilty to charges yesterday. Veronica Cirella has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of her daughter Julie, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant and was confined to a wheelchair. Julie was also apparently deathly allergic to peanuts—and she died July 23 after her mother had given her the peanut M&Ms as a special treat for her participation in their cousin's wedding the following day.

When Cirella found her daughter dead that day, she attempted suicide by drinking injections of insulin, taking painkillers, and wrapping a cord around her neck. She also wrote a suicide note in which she allegedly admitted to giving her daughter the M&M's, and alluded to problems with her ex-husband who had been recently jailed for violating an order of protection: "Trust me things only would have gotten worse," she reportedly wrote. "I could not risk loosing my daughter. I could not risk her being mistreated if he killed me. No one could take care of her the way I could."

Later in the note, she wrote: "I had to give her a better life, which was to give her back to heaven. She does not deserve to be in pain whatsoever. I don't mind going to hell because I took my life to give her a better life which is in heaven where she can be free."

Cirella was initially charged with manslaughter, but that was increased after a grand jury heard from Cirella and several witnesses: "Every child's death arouses strong emotions, but prosecutors must evaluate the evidence objectively, and regardless of how difficult the defendant perceived her circumstances to be, taking her daughter's life was unjustified," said District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

Cirella's lawyer, William Keahon, said it was ridiculous the charges had been increased when the medical examiner couldn't give a sure cause of death for the girl a year after her death: "I've never seen an indictment for murder, intentional murder, where the medical examiner cannot even give a causation of death, nor can he even say it's a homicide. It's bizarre," Keahon told reporters.