Mom who abandoned her baby in Ariz. desert to die sentenced 20 years
In September, 2016, 23-year-old Ashley Attson of Chinle, Arizona, placed her 17-month-old baby daughter in a stroller and pushed her into the nearby desert on the Navajo Reservation in Apache County. The mother then left her baby there to die alone. After four days and nights, Attson returned to bury the child. Yahoo! News quoted court prosecutors as saying that two days after discovering that her daughter had died, “Attson returned for the body, put it into a trash bag, and buried it in an animal hole.”
A statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona and shared by USA Today read, “Over the next few days, she met friends for ice cream and posted pictures of herself on Facebook. When she returned, the child was dead.” Attson eventually admitted to the atrocity and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. On July 31, Attson was sentenced to 20 years in prison and will spend the next five years after getting out of prison on supervised release.
It was revealed during her court case that Attson’s baby was born with methamphetamine present in her system. The child spent most of her life in the custody and care of tribal social services. Attson, a member of the Navajo Nation, was awarded custody of her daughter just two months before her fateful one-way stroll into the desert. When delivering his sentence, U.S. District Judge David C. Campbell said that Attson’s act was an “intentional, cold-hearted, horrendous killing of an innocent child,” according to USA Today.
