An Indianapolis mother has been found not guilty of negligently suffocating her son to death; a judge surprisingly said she would have found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter or manslaughter.
Dacia Lacey, 32, walked free after a judge ruled that prosecutors improperly filed charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, saying they failed to prove she killed her 2-month-old daughter Alona on purpose.
The mother admitted to police that she smothered the baby with couch cushions while high on methamphetamines so she could “get some sleep” in August 2022.
She cried in court this week when Judge Mark Stoner said he would release her “reluctantly,” insisting she was “not innocent” but also “not guilty of what the state has accused her of.”
The case was a bench trial, meaning it was only decided by a single judge instead of a jury.
Dacia Lacey, 32, walked free after a judge ruled that prosecutors filed inappropriate charges in the suffocation death of her infant daughter.
Judge Mark Stoner said he was “reluctantly” finding her not guilty, insisting she was “not innocent” but also “not guilty of what the state has accused her of.”
When Lacey was initially questioned about her daughter’s death, she told officers it was a freak accident caused by her children playing with the baby on a couch.
However, five months later, he admitted to smothering his daughter with sofa cushions because she wouldn’t stop crying when facing another interrogation.
At her trial, the court heard a recording of the 911 call she made after her death, where she was heard screaming and crying at a dispatcher.
‘Oh Lord! Oh Lord! My baby is dead! My newborn baby is dead!’ he said in the recording.
When emergency services arrived at her home, the baby was already dead, reports WTHR. A toxicology report found that the mother had methamphetamine in her system at the time.
An autopsy failed to determine the cause of death and could not determine whether it was caused by homicide or trauma.
A video was also shown in court showing how Lacey showed investigators with a doll how she placed the baby in a swing with a bottle before going to sleep.
However, his statements at that time, before confessing, were refuted by the testimony of his five-year-old daughter, who recalled witnessing the death of her newborn sister.
She testified: “Mom was angry, she hit the baby with a pillow and put it in his face.”
But Judge Stoner later said the girl’s testimony in court could not be trusted, because she “is only capable of hearing emotions, repeating some things without understanding them.”
The court also heard testimony from Lacey’s father’s fiancé, who cared for the child after the two-month-old died.
The mother admitted to police that she smothered the baby with couch cushions while high on methamphetamines so she could “get some sleep” in August 2022.
She recalled that the five-year-old girl told her the same story and testified: “She said my mom got really angry with her because she wouldn’t stop crying.”
And he put a pillow on her face and hit her with it. And I say: ‘What? What did you just say?
Armstrong recorded the boy telling him the story, which is what led to criminal charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death.
However, Stoner said the court was never presented with any physical evidence demonstrating neglect of a dependent, such as broken bones or signs of abuse.
Jamie Davis, a child abuse detective with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, testified about the mother’s confession, which she said came after the mother told several versions of how her baby died.
When she confessed, Davis said Lacey was “sitting on my lap and crying on my shoulder, and she had said she had hurt her baby and she had said she had suffocated him.”
‘She basically said she was high, she was tired and that Alona had been crying. In the end, he ended up lifting Alona and facing her towards the fold of the couch. “So if you have the back of the couch and then the seating area, she placed it facing the fold,” she said.
Lacey initially claimed her daughter’s death was a freak accident and told authorities several stories before admitting to smothering her daughter in her home (pictured).
In the end, Judge Stoner ruled that prosecutors brought inappropriate charges because they failed to prove that Lacey intentionally killed her daughter.
“You are not innocent, but you are not guilty of what the State has accused you of,” he said at the conclusion of the trial.
‘This is a case that happens when you are a bad parent. There are some things you can never do. You can never have exclusive possession of your children and go out and do drugs.’
While he said he would release her “reluctantly,” Stoner emphasized that under the law, “not everything that is a mistake or everything that is wrong is criminal.”
“You have to do something with criminal intent, with criminal responsibility, and that is what the accused is charged with,” he said.
‘When the state decides to charge an individual, it must show that they did something with criminal intent. Bad parenting, by definition, is not a crime.
Blaming the State for the mother going free, Stoner concluded: “It is important to understand that the prosecutor chooses the charges. It is the prosecutor who is chosen. The prosecutor has a selection division to make decisions about what should be charged.’
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office reportedly issued a brief statement to WTHR, saying the department “has no additional comment at this time.”