Mother Gets Probation In Baby’s Drowning Woman Fell Asleep In Bathtub With Infant Daughter

A woman accused of allowing her 5-month-old baby to drown in the bathtub was sentenced Tuesday to two years of probation.

Both the defense attorney and prosecutor were near tears as a distraught Kelli R. O’Neill pleaded guilty to injury to a child.

“It’s one of the saddest cases I’ve ever dealt with,” said Suzanna Graham, O’Neill’s attorney.

O’Neill, a 31-year-old Post Falls day-care provider with a teaching degree, fell asleep in the bathtub while she and her daughter, Morgan, were bathing together.

O’Neill had been drinking alcohol at a friend’s house the night before.

Deputies said O’Neill told them she drank 14 beers the night before her daughter’s death, according to a Kootenai County sheriff’s report.

O’Neill insists she never said that. Instead, Graham said her client had only 2-1/2 drinks and was not feeling drunk when her daughter drowned.

O’Neill spent the night at her friend’s home to sleep off any effects from the alcohol. She slept six hours before returning home the next morning, Graham said.

That morning, a man dropped his child off to be baby-sat by O’Neill. He did not see any signs that O’Neill was drunk, Graham said.

O’Neill had been told by her doctor that it was a good idea to bathe with her infant daughter as a means of bonding with her, Graham told Judge Patrick McFadden Tuesday.

While in the tub together, “she nodded off, she doesn’t know for how long,” Graham told the judge. The defense attorney estimated that it was between one and two minutes.

When O’Neill awoke, the child was under the water. The frantic mother tried to revive the girl while calling 911, according to sheriff’s reports.

In a transcript of the emergency call, a woman can be heard screaming incoherently and pleading with her baby to breathe.

Her 4-year-old son, Mick, also got on the phone and tried to talk to emergency operators as his mother yelled for help in the background.

“I killed my baby,” a hysterical O’Neill told the officers when they arrived. O’Neill then tried to grab an officer’s gun apparently to shoot herself, according to the sheriff’s report.

Her daughter was pronounced dead at the hospital.

“I believe Ms. O’Neill has shown extreme remorse over this - more than any other case I’ve dealt with,” Scot Nass, deputy prosecutor, told the judge Tuesday.

O’Neill first was charged with felony injury to a child. But as part of a plea agreement, Nass agreed to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor if she pleaded guilty.

On Tuesday, O’Neill sobbed as she entered an Alford plea, which means she does not admit any wrongdoing but instead concedes it is likely a jury would find her guilty.

Judge McFadden sentenced her to 180 days in jail and a $300 fine but then suspended both. O’Neill will not have to go to jail unless she breaks the rules of her two-year probation.

“No criminal justice system can do anything to Kelli O’Neill that she hasn’t already done to herself or will do for the rest of her life,” Graham said. “She is just devastated.”

At the time of her daughter’s death, O’Neill and her husband were in the midst of a divorce. The divorce is now final but O’Neill’s ex-husband has remained supportive of his wife, Graham said.

Graham said O’Neill is seeking counseling and hopes eventually to work with children again.

Judge McFadden forbade O’Neill to run her own day care but said she would be allowed to work for a day care under someone else’s supervision.

“I feel very badly for the tragedy you went through and I wish you the best,” McFadden said.

, DataTimes