In Jamestown courtroom, Ellie Nesler shot camp counselor accused of molesting her son

Ellie Nesler, the mother who shot to death in a Tuolumne County courtroom the man who allegedly molested her son, has died. She was 56.

Nesler died Friday at the UC Davis Medical Center, according to Phyllis Brown, the hospital's public information officer.

The cause of death was not revealed, but Nesler was known to have been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994.

The story of Ellie Nesler and Daniel Mark Driver, the Christian camp employee who allegedly sodomized then-7-year-old Willie Nesler, became national news after she shot Driver, 35, several times in the head and neck in the Tuolumne County community of Jamestown on April 2, 1993.

Ellie Nesler was praised by some as a protective mother driven to act by the prospect of having her traumatized son testify against Driver in court. Others criticized her for brushing aside the legal system.

Nesler pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was convicted on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison but won an appeal based on juror misconduct and was released after three years.

Her problems with law enforcement did not end. In July 2002, she was convicted of buying 10,000 pseudoephedrine tablets used to make methamphetamine and was sentenced to six years in Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. She was granted an early release in 2006.

Willie Nesler later had his own legal trouble. Raised by an aunt while his mother was in prison for killing Driver, Willie repeatedly landed in juvenile hall and in teenage work camps and, as an adult, in jail. From 1999 to 2004, he was arrested by sheriff's deputies and booked into county jail at least 18 times on charges that included robbery and drug-related offenses.

In 2005, Willie was sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison for stomping to death David Davis, a squatter whom he had let live on the family property, in a dispute over tools. Nesler killed him within an hour after receiving an early good-conduct release from a 30-day sentence for an earlier assault on Davis.