Alabama authorities have sentenced a mentally ill mother to life behind bars after the smothering death of her toddler back in 2016.
Stephanie Diane Smith pleaded guilty to Zadie Wren Cooper’s murder after giving investigators a full confession to what happened on July 4, 2016, when she called 911 to report an unresponsive child.
Smith told detectives that she had mental issues and didn’t take her medication for three days when she suffocated her sleeping daughter to death with a pillow. She described seeing all red, and not realizing what’s going on: “Yesterday, it was very clear that she was in a very good frame of mind,” Chief Floyd Johnson said. “She was talking with us. She wanted to get this out, that she had caused this.”
The mother felt guilty and said she was either going to admit her crime or hurt herself.
