Left: Melissa Bilby and her daughter (GoFundMe). Right: Amanda L. Greger (Clermont County Jail).
An Ohio woman who was found wearing a blood-soaked sweatshirt after beating her friend's daughter while babysitting overnight is headed for prison.
Amanda Leigh Greger, 38, was sentenced in May to at least 3 1/2 years in prison for the vicious beating of the 1-year-old daughter of her friend, Melissa Bilby.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Greger was accused in November of causing injuries, including blood that was "seeping from [the] right eye" and a brain bleed. The harm was so severe that the baby had to be put in intensive care "heavily sedated" by doctors.
On May 28, Greger pleaded guilty to one count of felonious assault, according to a judgment and sentencing order reviewed by Law&Crime. Additional charges, including child endangerment, were dropped.
Greger also pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence. According to authorities, when Bilby returned to her home in Goshen Township, which is part of the greater Cincinnati area, after working an overnight shift, she found Greger asleep in the room with the baby. Greger was allegedly wearing a hooded sweatshirt that was "covered in what appeared to be blood and vomit."
Investigators also discovered bloodstains "located throughout the room," police wrote in the affidavit.
"The clothing [the victim] had been wearing was found in the washing machine, washed but still visibly stained," the affidavit reads.
The victim's mother confirmed that the stained clothing found in the washing machine was the same clothing that her daughter had been wearing when she left for work the previous evening and before she suffered the injuries.
According to the sentencing order, Greger did not speak at the hearing.
"The Court inquired of the defendant if they had anything to say on their behalf prior to sentencing, or if there is any good and sufficient reason why sentence should not be pronounced, and the defendant stated they did not," the order says.
Following the baby's admission to the hospital, Lindsay Bilby, the victim's aunt, started a GoFundMe page for the victim and her family. The page identified the mother as Melissa Bilby and described Greger as a "lifetime friend" of Bilby's whom she "trusted to protect and keep her kids safe while she worked to provide for them."
The page also provided additional details about the victim's injuries and prognosis.
"[The victim] was admitted to PICU [pediatric intensive care unit] with a brain bleed, bruised lungs, fluid along her spine, and fluid around her heart," the fundraising page says. "She was intubated, then placed on a ventilator, and she is being kept heavily sedated to help her heal."
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.