Athens mom indicted on capital murder for smothering child

Published 4:22 pm Monday, July 3, 2017

A Limestone County grand jury has formally charged an Athens woman who confessed in April to killing her daughter with a pillow last Fourth of July.

Stephanie Diane Smith, 25, was indicted by the grand jury June 2 on a charge of capital murder. She was arrested on the grand jury warrant Friday by the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office and released on the $75,000 bail posted following her initial arrest in April on the same charge.

Alabama law requires a capital murder charge in the wrongful death of a child under age 14.

The victim, Zadie Wren Cooper, was 4 years old.

The death

On July 4, 2016, Athens police had received a 911 call from Smith reporting her daughter was not breathing. Athens police, firefighters and ambulance personnel found Smith performing CPR on Zadie, who was lying on her back on her bed.

An Athens emergency medical technician continued CPR until an ambulance arrived to take the child to Athens-Limestone Hospital. She was later transferred to Huntsville Hospital, where tests determined Zadie had no brain activity.

On July 7, Zadie’s family removed her from life support and she died.

Under questioning by investigators, Smith recounted that she had heard something on the baby monitor and found Zadie between the bed and wall. According to Smith, she was not breathing.

Smith recounted the same sequence of events when investigators and the Department of Human Resources interviewed her again in October 2016.

A private autopsy did not determine a cause of death.

Believing the death was suspicious, the investigation continued.

Confession

On April 13, Smith and a friend came to the Police Department on Hobbs Street, and Smith confessed to killing Zadie. She said she has a mental condition and was not initially aware of what she was doing to Zadie.

When she removed the pillow, Zadie was not breathing.