Stephanie Diane Smith, mother to Zadie Wren Cooper, has confessed to the murder of her 4-year-old daughter. The mom from Athens, Alabama, has publicly mourned her daughter's death on social media after she died in early July 2016 — but it was only later that the mom admitted she was the one behind her little girl's death all along. Now, years later, she has finally pleaded to a lesser charge and been sentenced in this tragic case.
Smith called 911 on July 4, 2016, to report that Zadie wasn't breathing.
The 25-year-old Smith, also known as Stephanie Diane Cooper, told police she'd heard a noise on Zadie's baby monitor, according to Action News Jax. She told them that when she went to investigate, she found Zadie not breathing, wedged between her bed and the wall.
When police and emergency workers arrived, they found her performing CPR on Zadie with the help of a dispatcher.
The girl was rushed to Huntsville Hospital, where she was on life support for three days. Eventually, doctors concluded that they couldn't find any brain activity and her family decided to remove her from life support. She died July 7, 2016.
Almost a year after her daughter's death, Smith took to Instagram to express her deep grief over the loss.
"You were and still are my world. I'm lost without you," she wrote on April 6, 2017. "Completely lost. I need you, but you're not here, and I'm so sorry I couldn't do anything to stop that. I want to go lie by your grave and never leave."
"I wish you'd taken me with you," she continued. "I don't want to be here without you."
The case remained open.
It stayed that way until Smith walked into the Athens Police Department in mid-April 2017, and told police that she wanted to talk to them about her daughter's death.
It was then that she confessed to a long history of mental illness -- a fact that was later confirmed by her family.
In a news conference on April 13, 2017, Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson said a private autopsy requested by Zadie's family at the time could not find a cause of death. He added that Smith had confessed to killing her daughter.
"(She) told us that she has mental issues and, at the time she had some issues and she was not on her medication," Johnson said during the news conference.
Johnson went on to describe the details of what really happened on the day Zadie was killed.
"She went into Zadie's room, put a pillow over her head, her face — she was sleeping on her back — and smothered the child," he said. "A short time later, she realized what was going on; she removed the pillow. Zadie was not breathing, and she called 911."
Johnson said Smith originally lied about what happened to protect herself.
The police chief also said it was the first he'd seen someone walk into the police station and confess to murder. He added that to him it seemed as if Smith's conscience had gotten the better of her and it motivated her to admit what she'd done.
"Yesterday, it was very clear (that) she was in a very good frame of mind," he explained. "She knew exactly what she was doing. She was talking with us. She wanted to get this out, that she had caused this. I've not seen one like this, where they come in and straight-up tell you," he added.
Johnson also explained that at the time that Zadie was smothered, her mother had not been taking her medications for three days.
He declined to divulge which mental health conditions afflicted the mom.
"I'm not really qualified to make those statements, and I don't have any paperwork at this time telling me exactly what all those could possibly be," Johnson said. "And that would be an issue the courts would have to deal with."
On an Instagram post on Smith's page from 2017, she shared a photo of pills.
The mom tagged her photo with the hashtags for bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety.
"This is what it takes for me to barely function," she wrote in the caption.
The mom told police that she's experienced similar episodes to the one she had when she smothered her daughter — but that was certainly the worst.
"She said she 'sees red,'" Johnson said. "And when she sees red, she doesn't know what happens until it goes away."
Johnson added that both Smith's family and the mom herself seemed to be in pain over the confession.
He also said that before she came into the police station to confess her crime, Smith texted five friends and admitted what she'd done. One of those friends eventually gave that information to police.
He said that when the incident originally happened, authorities were suspicious of Smith, but they couldn't prove that she'd been involved.
The mom is being closely monitored by staff at Limestone County Jail, as she told police she was afraid of what she'd do to herself if she hadn't confessed. Because of her daughter's age, the mom was initially charged with capital murder.
On Monday, Smith pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of felony murder.
Circuit Judge C. Chadwick Wise sentenced the mom to a life term that includes the possibility of parole, according to People, but it's not clear when she would be eligible for parole. The mom was meant to stand trial in 2020, but her plea deal follows delays in the Alabama Supreme Court because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Hopefully, both Smith and her family now will be able to get the help and justice that they need.
"The first thing you think of is Zadie," Johnson said during the 2017 news conference. "And then you start thinking of the family and the pain that the actions have caused. You think about what Stephanie's going through, you think about the child's father, you think about the grandparents, you think about friends."
