Malnourished 7-week-old baby boy dies in Idaho, feds say. Mom is going to prison

A mom in Idaho is going to prison following the death of her 7-week-old baby boy, federal officials said.

In December 2019, an ambulance responded to 27-year-old Keisha Michelle Cody’s Fort Hall Reservation home after getting reports that a baby wasn’t breathing, according to a June 18 news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

An individual staying at Cody’s home heard her crying earlier in the morning, saying her son wasn’t waking up, prosecutors said.

Paramedics tried performing life-saving measures but the baby was later pronounced dead, officials said.

An autopsy showed the baby had high levels of methamphetamine in his system which caused malnutrition ultimately leading to his death, officials said.

During an interview, Cody told FBI agents “she used methamphetamine around the child and otherwise exposed the child to methamphetamine,” prosecutors said.

McClatchy News reached out to Cody’s lawyers on June 20 and was awaiting a response.

“The loss of her innocent newborn is something this mother will now have to live with for the rest of her life,” Shohini Sinha, Special Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake City FBI, said in the release.

Cody pleaded guilty in December 2023, prosecutors said.

She was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, officials said.

Fort Hall is about a 280-mile drive southeast of Boise.

This story was originally published June 20, 2024 at 12:29 PM with the headline "Malnourished 7-week-old baby boy dies in Idaho, feds say. Mom is going to prison."