Inset, left to right: Zoey Chafer (Bratley Nelson Chapels) and Susan Smith (Sawyer County Sheriff's Office). Background: The area in Wisconsin where the family lived (Google Maps).
A 30-year-old mother in Wisconsin will serve more than a decade in prison for killing her 4-year-old special-needs daughter, who died with a blood alcohol level that was well over lethally toxic levels. Sawyer County Circuit Judge Anthony J. Stella Jr. on Friday ordered Samantha S. Smith to serve 15 years in a state correctional facility for her role in the 2021 death of young Zoey Chafer, court records show.
In addition to her incarceration, Smith will also have to complete five years of supervised release.
Smith reached a deal with prosecutors in November and pleaded guilty to one count of chronic child neglect and no contest to one count of repeated physical abuse of a child resulting in great bodily harm. In exchange for her plea, a charge of first-degree intentional homicide was dismissed but read-in, meaning the judge can still consider the charge for sentencing.
Zoey received a diagnosis of "severe cerebral palsy" as a newborn. She was nonverbal, unable to move, and needed a feeding tube for nutrition and hydration.
Smith's boyfriend, Domenic Falkner, moved in with Smith in August 2020 and was an approved caregiver for Zoey, meaning he was paid to take care of the child. In September, he was convicted on the same charges as Smith.
As Law&Crime previously reported, medics responded to a 911 call on July 28, 2021, about an unconscious 4-year-old girl at an apartment complex in the 15000 block of West 2nd Street in Hayward — just over 300 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
Shortly after arriving at the residence, medics declared Zoey dead at the scene. In the immediate aftermath of Zoey's death, the Sawyer County Coroner's Office did not order an autopsy, but did draw a sample of the victim's blood for further analysis.
Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene analyzed the blood and determined that at the time of her death, the child had a blood alcohol content of .572 g/100mL, per the affidavit.
For context, that is more than seven times the blood alcohol content (BAC) for an adult over the age of 21 to be considered legally intoxicated in the state of Wisconsin. According to a study from the University of Notre Dame, adults require assistance walking and are at risk of blacking out once their BAC reaches levels between 0.20 and 0.249. BAC levels between 0.25 and 0.399 are considered alcohol poisoning and anything over 0.40 may lead to "onset of coma" and "possible death due to respiratory arrest," the study states.
Following the results of the blood analysis, the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office exhumed the child's body and conducted an autopsy. The medical examiner ruled that the manner of the victim's death was homicide and determined the cause of death to be "acute ethanol toxicity."
"The presence of ethanol in a non-ambulatory child is consistent with intentional administration by another. The level of ethanol found in her pre-embalmed body would be a lethal level in non-chronic users and be lethal in a child this age," the medical examiner wrote in the report, the Dryden Wire reported. "The presence of ethanol in the subscapular hematoma may represent prior administration."
The medical examiner also noted injuries indicative of physical abuse.
"The abrasions, contusions, and healing fractures in this non-ambulatory child are also concerning for non-accidental trauma," the report stated.
In interviews with detectives, Smith and Falkner allegedly admitted to being the only adults in the home during the time period the alcohol was introduced into the child's system, and were the only ones who operated her feeding tubes.
Falkner's sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 1.
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