An Arizona woman has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for putting her 17-month-old daughter in a stroller, pushing her into the desert and leaving her there to die.
Ashley Denise Attson, 23, left her daughter in the desert for four days and nights. During the days the helpless child was left alone on the nation's largest Native American reservation, Ashley met friends for ice cream and posted pictures of herself on Facebook. On the fifth day, she retrieved the baby's body and buried her in an animal hole.
Attson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the September 2016 killing on the Navajo Nation. US attorney's spokesman Cosme Lopez declined to comment on the motive for the killing and said he could not provide additional information on circumstances of the child's death. He also said the child's name could not be released because she's a minor. Court documents refer to her as "Jane Doe."
The child was born with methamphetamine in her system and was in the custody of tribal social services most of her life before Attson regained custody about two months before she killed her daughter, prosecutors said.
"Ashley Denise Attson, 23, committed an 'intentional, cold-hearted, horrendous killing of an innocent child," US District Judge David Campbell said on Monday as he imposed the prison sentence under a plea deal.
The plea agreement said the maximum punishment that Attson could have received under her guilty plea to the murder charge was life in prison. She ended up getting only 20 years and a former tribal prosecutor said she was troubled that Attson received a 20-year sentence.
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