A 19-year-old Indiana woman admitted to poisoning breast milk meant for her 11-week-old niece.
Sarai Rodriguez-Miranda pleaded guilty to attempted murder in an Allen County Superior Court room in Fort Wayne. According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, she will serve up to 25 years in prison. She will be sentenced on May 18.
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Rodriguez-Miranda told Allen Superior Court Magistrate Samuel Keris she poisoned a baby bottle with a “lethal dose of acetaminophen” in January 2017. She said she took the medication for anxiety and depression.
According to court records, Rodriguez-Miranda was upset with her mother because she let her brother, his fiancee and their daughter live with them. Her mother found text messages between Rodriguez-Miranda and her daughter’s boyfriend, in which they discussed how many pills would be needed to kill her brother’s baby.
“I’m gonna crush up some of these pills since she decided they can stay longer and kill their baby,” Rodriguez-Miranda wrote.
Her mother then put the bottles of breast milk in a bag. One of the bottle was already tainted and the milk inside was a different color than it should have been.
A toxicology test found that the tainted bottle had the equivalent of nine Excedrin tablets in the liquid. That would have been enough to kill an adult.
According to court documents, Rodriguez-Miranda later wrote another text message to her boyfriend, in which she wondered why the baby was not dead.
“Why didn’t that baby die dude thats dumb,” the message read. “They definitely threw it out. … Yeah and I thought for a sec it could be psychosomatic where my subconscious is guilty so it creates these pains but tbh (to be honest) I hope she dies. I don’t feel bad about it bc she was destined to grow up (expletive) or be abused. I’d never be suspect I know but I hope it works.”
The baby was taken to a hospital, where she was found not to be poisoned.
According to the Journal-Gazette, after Rodriguez-Miranda’s mother told her to talk to the police, she already fled to Michigan with her boyfriend. She was arrested there by U.S. Marshals and taken back to Indiana, where she was charged in September.
Photo credit: The Journal-Gazette
