Left: Melody Townsend (Cook County Sheriff's Office). Right: Ana Marie Townsend (court documents/WMAQ).
The Illinois mother of a dead 1-year-old who played fake baby cries over the phone to convince family members that the toddler was still alive will avoid prison despite being convicted of two crimes stemming from her daughter's death.
This week, Cook County Judge Tiana S. Blakely sentenced Melody Townsend to two years of probation in connection with the 2017 death of Ana Marie Townsend.
Townsend's sentence also requires her to undergo a mental health evaluation and treatment and complete a domestic violence counseling program, according to a report from Chicago-based CBS affiliate WBBM. Court records also list DNA indexing as a condition, local NBC affiliate WMAQ reported.
The sentence follows a January jury verdict finding Townsend guilty of one count of concealing a homicidal death and one count of endangering a child under circumstances involving death. She was not convicted of her daughter's murder, and the person responsible for killing Ana Marie remains unknown.
The sentence prompted activists who gathered outside the courthouse to demand an explanation of the sentencing decision and an update on the investigation into Ana Marie's death, Chicago Fox affiliate WFLD reported.
Townsend's probation term began Oct. 28 and will reportedly expire on the same date in 2028.
As Law&Crime previously reported, police and firefighters in Markham, Illinois, responded to a report of a suspicious fire on July 3, 2017, at a vacant house in the 15400 block of Hamlin Avenue. After extinguishing the flames, authorities located Ana Marie's body stuffed in a plastic bag and wrapped in a blanket in the home's attic.
For years, the young victim was known as "Baby Jane Doe" because authorities were unable to identify the remains. However, an autopsy revealed that the toddler's death was a homicide, that she had suffered physical abuse and that she was killed prior to the fire. Toxicology tests showed that Ana Marie also had drugs and alcohol in her system at the time of her death.
Authorities said that Townsend's parents — the baby's grandparents — repeatedly asked about their granddaughter in the months after the fire, leading to the alleged ruse.
During one phone call, Ana Marie's father allegedly played "fake baby cries from the internet" to convince the grandparents that the baby was still alive, according to Chicago CW affiliate WGN. The grandparents were reportedly suspicious and said the child did not sound like Ana Marie, but Melody Townsend claimed the child just "was not feeling well."