What to Know
Stacy Lee Snow ran a daycare from her home in California. On April 8, 2025, a toddler in her care seemed fussier than normal, so Snow put her down for a nap. When she went back to check on her, the baby girl was unresponsive.
The medical examiner ultimately determined she died from asphyxia. The tragedy blindsided the unidentified baby’s family as her mother reportedly told Snow not to put her daughter in the crib. More than a year later, Judge CJ Mody of San Diego Superior Court sentenced Snow to three years in jail.
The toddler’s head reportedly became wedged during her nap.
According to court documents obtained by CBS 8, Snow admitted she put the 16-month-old little girl down for a nap around 10:30 a.m. because she seemed fussy. Snow reportedly placed her on a plastic cot atop a portable crib.
She also placed a mesh cover over the child to keep her from climbing out of the crib. When a daycare worker went to move the child later that morning, she reportedly fell to the floor unresponsive.
Snow attempted CPR but could not revive the child. The medical examiner ruled she died by accidental asphyxiation when her head became wedged between the plastic cot and the railing.
The child’s mother did not want her to sleep.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported the child’s unidentified mother specifically instructed Snow not to put her child down for a nap while at daycare. The mother reportedly told the court she was nervous about leaving her daughter alone, but trusted Snow.
She apparently told her, “She opened her daycare because she did not trust other people to care for her own children and wanted to help other mothers,” the grieving mother said. “I trusted her with the most important person in my life because I believed she understood the responsibility and trust that comes with caring for someone else’s child.”
The judge did not go easy on Snow.
Snow, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges, wrote a letter to the judge, obtained by the San Diego Union-Tribune, expressing her regret. “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about this tragic incident and all the ways it could have been prevented had I not been so careless with my actions,” she wrote.
Mody imposed the maximum sentence of three years in county jail, per the San Diego Union-Tribune, stating “repeated intentional and negligent choices” led to “a tragedy that was absolutely and wholly avoidable.”
Snow apologized to the family in court.
“I am ashamed of my negligence, and I will not ask for your forgiveness because I do not deserve it,” she said to the toddler’s family.
The toddler’s father wrote a letter describing his inability to forget the last time he said goodbye to his baby. Her mother said that life will never be the same.
“Every time I hear a child cry, it feels like a knife to the heart,” she said. “I still cannot bring myself to pack away her belongings because doing so feels like losing her all over again,” she said.
The family filed a wrongful death suit against Snow, who will begin her three-year sentence in the county jail in August 2026. She will spend the first two and a half years behind bars and the final six months on mandatory supervision.
READ NEXT: Toddler Suffocated & Died When Day Care Worker Put Her Legs Over Him To Force a Nap
