Two years after the lifeless body of Oaklee Snow was found in the bottom drawer of a dresser inside an abandoned home, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend have been sentenced to decades in prison for her death.
The child was found on April 21, 2023, in Morgan County in Indiana after she was reported missing from her father’s home in Oklahoma and officials mounted a national search.
‘They were entrusted with the care of a 2-year-old baby and failed miserably, and it resulted in her death.’
Snow had been removed without her father’s permission by her mother, Madison Marshall, along with Snow’s 7-month-old brother.
Marshall took the children and moved to Indiana with her boyfriend, Roan Waters, where they lived in a “trap house,” which is slang for a house used by drug addicts. The couple then reportedly abandoned the 7-month-old boy and moved away without Snow.
Waters was arrested on March 3, 2023, in Greenwood Village, Colorado, while Marshall was arrested in North Carolina as officials continued looking for Snow.
The national search for the girl ended when her body was found on April 21, 2023.
When police questioned Marshall, she described an incident on Feb. 9 where Waters had begun yelling at the toddler to bounce on a bouncy ball. When the mother ran to the living room, she found Waters holding the child’s unresponsive body with blood and saliva dripping from her mouth.
The couple got into their car shortly afterward with the body of the child wrapped up, and drove away.
In June 2023, after police found the child, the Morgan County Coroner’s Office determined that the toddler had died from homicide by “unspecified means.” They also said her leg had been broken.
Waters took a plea deal and agreed to charges of neglect of a dependent resulting in death and two counts of neglect.
He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Marshall also took a plea deal and pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent resulting in death. As part of the deal, she agreed to testify against Waters.
Marshall was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
“The fact that two adults who had the care of this child would let these things happen to her and do these things to her is just terrifying. And that’s why they’re going to the Department of Corrections,” said Marion County Prosecutor’s Office chief trial deputy Dan Cicchini after the sentencing.
“That’s why that 45-year number is important; it’s because it is as serious a crime as it gets. They were entrusted with the care of a 2-year-old baby and failed miserably, and it resulted in her death,” he added.
The abandoned boy was returned to his father.
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