Mother Poisons 5-Year-Old Son, Stages Car Crash To Cover Her Tracks

A woman in Gaithersburg, Maryland admitted to killing her 5-year-old by an overdose of antihistamines last year before staging a fatal car accident by setting her vehicle on fire, according to ABC.

On Thursday, 35-year-old Narges Shafeirad pleaded guilty in the Montgomery County Circuit Court to first-degree murder in the death of her son, Daniel Dana. At her sentencing in December, she faces up to 50 years in prison.

The autopsy report indicated that Daniel died of a diphenhydramine overdose in June of 2015. The mother forced him to swallow the medication containing diphenhdramine, which is the active ingredient used in drugs such as Benadryl.

"Daniel had two-and-a-half times the concentration of diphenhydramine in his heart-blood than what would kill an adult, prosecutor Marybeth Ayres stated. Before he died, he likely suffered from seizures, poor vision and vomiting.

After his death, prosecutors say Shafeirad then tried to stage a car wreck with her son's body inside the car. She doused the vehicle with gasoline, and then set it on fire beside a Montgomery County highway. When the police arrived on the scene, Shafeirad was lying outside the car as it was engulfed in flames.

Shafeirad was in the midst of a divorce and custody battle with her husband at the time of the murder. "We believe," Ayres said Thursday, "that she didn't want to give the dad what he wanted."

"When you look at the depravity - she murdered her son and attempted to cover it up - it's awful," Darren Francke, captain of the Montgomery Police Department told the Washington Post at the time of the crime.

The child's father could not be reached, and has not commented on the situation.