An Indiana mother who admitted to smothering her baby to death while high on methamphetamines will walk free after the judge found her “not innocent,” but also “not guilty” this week.
Dacia Lacey, 32, told police that she used couch cushions to smother her two-month-old daughter, Alona, so that she could “get some sleep” in August 2022, the Daily Mail reported.
She initially told officers that it was a freak accident, but she eventually broke down in a police interview five months later and said she smothered Alona because she wouldn’t stop crying.
During the bench trial — deliberated on by just the judge, without a jury — Lacey’s 911 call was played in the courtroom: “Oh my god! Oh my God! My baby is dead! My newborn baby is dead!”
The infant was already dead when first responders arrived at the Indianapolis home, WTRH reported.
“Toxicology results showed methamphetamine in Dacia’s system the day her baby died,” the local outlet stated.
An autopsy on Alona was inconclusive, and failed to conclude if her death was a homicide.
Lacey’s initial claims to detectives prior to her confession were disputed by her five-year-old daughter, who said, “Mom was mad, hit the baby with a pillow and put the pillow on her face.”
Lacey’s father’s fiancée, who cared for the five-year-old after her little sister’s death, also testified to hearing the little girl’s disturbing recollection of events.
“She said ‘my mommy got really mad at her because she wouldn’t stop crying,'” the woman said in court. “‘And she held a pillow on her face and hit her with it.’ And I’m like, ‘What? Like, what did you just say?'”
However, Judge Stoner said the child’s testimony was unreliable because she “is only capable of hearing emotions, repeating some things without understanding things.”
According to the judge, there was never any physical proof of neglect or physical abuse on the infant.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department child abuse detective Jamie Davis testified that Lacey came up with several versions of events before ultimately confessing.
The accused killer was “sitting in my lap and crying on my shoulder, and had said that she did her baby wrong and said that she had smothered her baby,” Davis said. “Basically, she said that she was high, and she was tired, and Alona had been crying. Ultimately, she ended up picking up Alona and facing her towards the crease in the couch. So, if you have the back of the couch and then the seating area, she placed her faced toward the crease.”
Judge Stoner said he would’ve found Lacey guilty if she had been charged with involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide, but he couldn’t find her guilty of purposely killing her baby.
“You’re not innocent, but you’re not guilty of what the state has charged you with,” he told her as the trial came to a close.
“This is a case that happens when you’re a bad parent. There are some things you can never do. You can never have sole possession of your children and go out and use drugs,” he continued, adding that he was freeing her “reluctantly” and that “not everything that’s a mistake or everything that is wrong is criminal.”
“Something has to be done with criminal intent, criminal responsibility, and that’s what the defendant is charged with,” Stoner added. “When the state chooses to charge an individual, they must prove they did something with criminal intent. Poor parenting, by definition, is not criminal.”