A 26-year-old mother from Minnesota won't be serving any prison time after a tragic incident in which she accidentally suffocated her newborn son while under the influence of methamphetamine. The Third Judicial District Court Judge, Kevin H. Siefken, has ordered Jocelyn Leslie Pater to undergo five years of supervised probation as a consequence of her son's unfortunate demise.
Pater had previously reached an agreement with prosecutors in which she admitted guilt to a single charge of felony second-degree manslaughter due to child neglect or endangerment. This plea deal, which was agreed upon over a year ago, considered the fact that Pater had been sober and seeking assistance from chemical dependency and mental health professionals during that time. Additionally, Judge Siefken has mandated that Pater must complete 200 hours of community service. It's worth noting that Pater could have faced a maximum prison sentence of 10 years on the manslaughter charge.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers from the Austin Police Department received a call on December 13, 2021, at around 6:21 p.m. reporting an infant with a nosebleed who wasn't breathing at an apartment complex on 27th Street Southwest.
Upon arrival at the scene, first responders discovered the lifeless infant on the living room floor with no pulse. They immediately rushed the child to Austin Medical Center for treatment.
Pater, who had a history of substance abuse, told the police that she had fallen asleep on the couch with her son between her body and the back couch cushions, mentioning that she typically woke up whenever he moved. On this occasion, she was awakened when a hysterical friend entered her apartment, pulled her away from the victim, and called 911 while performing CPR on the child.
The friend, identified as "T.F." in court documents, explained that she had been helping Pater move but left when Pater went to sleep. When she returned and couldn't get Pater to answer the door, she entered the apartment and saw Pater's chest on the child's face, describing the baby as "purple and blue."
While at the hospital, Pater expressed remorse and acknowledged that she shouldn't have slept with her child, saying, "you're not supposed to sleep with your kid." She also claimed she hadn't suffocated the infant because she always woke up when he moved.
Inside Pater's apartment, the police found a "loaded syringe" with methamphetamine, along with three needles, a digital scale, a meth pipe near a baby bottle on the bed, and approximately a gram of methamphetamine. The baby bottle nipple tested positive for methamphetamine, and the infant was presumptively tested positive for narcotics.
Initially, Pater denied any recent drug use during her pregnancy and was puzzled about how her son tested positive for methamphetamine. However, in a subsequent interview, she confessed to a recent relapse. She admitted to using meth on a daily basis for about three weeks and apologized for lying to the police. A urine analysis later confirmed the presence of both amphetamine and methamphetamine in her system.
The infant passed away on December 17 due to asphyxia resulting from overlay while co-sleeping with an adult, according to an autopsy. It remained unclear whether the methamphetamine in the baby's system contributed to his death.
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