Inset: Sarah Michelle Gilley-Wroe (Midland County Sheriff's Office). Background: The apartment complex where Gilley-Wroe fatally beat her infant daughter in Midland, Texas (Google Maps).
A Texas woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for brutally killing her infant daughter because the baby was crying.
On Thursday, Sarah Michelle Gilley-Wroe, 24, was found guilty by a jury of her peers in Midland County on one count of capital murder of a child younger than 10 years of age over the death of the 5-week-old Diamond Gilley-Wroe.
In turn, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by 142nd Judicial District Court Judge David G. Rogers.
The investigation began on May 11, 2022, when the infant died at Midland Memorial Hospital from severe head trauma.
Doctors at the hospital determined the child's injuries included two fractures to the back of her skull and were consistent with blunt force trauma, according to the Midland County District Attorney's Office.
During the trial, medical experts testified that the amount of force required to cause such injuries was comparable to a fall from a two-story building, according to a courtroom report by Odessa-based ABC affiliate KMID and Midland-based Fox affiliate KPEJ, which collectively broadcast as "Yourbasin.com."
During an initial interview with police at the hospital, the defendant blamed the family's dog for the child's injuries, according to a contemporaneous report by Yourbasin.com.
Gilley-Wroe first said the 30-pound dog jumped on the little girl a few days prior to the hospital visit. Later, the woman's story changed to say the incident had occurred weeks earlier. Then, the narrative shifted entirely to allege the dog "put a paw" on the baby's head.
After Diamond died, the child's parents were taken in for additional questioning.
The little girl's father, for his part, said he left Gilley-Wroe with his daughter at their shared unit one day while he went out to look for a new place to live. At the time, the couple lived at the Ranchland Apartments on East Wadley Avenue in Midland — a city located almost exactly equidistant from both Fort Worth and El Paso.
A check-in phone call from the father went unanswered, but then the defendant called back to tell him the baby "wasn't breathing right," according to the original arrest affidavit in the case.
When he returned home, the father noticed the girl was convulsing and making "strange noises," according to law enforcement.
"She slept for about four hours…she wouldn't wake up, she wouldn't eat," the man later told police. "Then later that night, my wife told me her (the baby's) head was swollen."
Aside from blaming the dog for Diamond's death, the defendant also suggested her aunt or the girl's father could have been to blame, but law enforcement came to discount those suggestions.
As the investigation progressed, investigators seized the defendant's cellphone and found what they termed incriminating Google searches.
"She told a cellmate that she threw the baby against the wall and struck the baby until it stopped crying," prosecutors said in a press release.
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