Daycare Employee Accused of Murdering Nonverbal Boy, 3, with Weighted Blanket By KC Baker

A Missouri daycare director accused of killing a nonverbal boy with autism in her care by covering him with a weighted blanket has been indicted on a charge of murder.

Tiffany Hedrick, 40, of Park Hills, was indicted by a grand jury in St. Francois County on Thursday, Aug. 14, in connection with the May 16 death of Conrad Ashcraft, 3, according to a press release from the Jefferson County Prosecutor’s Office.

Hedrick is charged with abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death, armed criminal action, and second-degree murder, according to the JCPO.

The indictment, obtained by PEOPLE, alleges that the boy was “killed by asphyxiation” after Hedrick placed him and left him “face down under a weighted blanket with his arms immobilized.”

It goes on to allege that Hedrick “knowingly caused the child to suffer physical injury and that (the child) died as a result of injuries sustained from this conduct” with the aid of a “dangerous instrument, namely a weighted blanket.”

Ashcraft was found when his mother came to pick him up at Poppy’s Playhouse 2 in Park Hills, KDSK reports.

On May 27, the boy’s father, Joshua Ashcraft filed a petition for wrongful death for $25,000 against Hedrick, who was the director of Poppy’s Playhouse, and a now-former city councilwoman Spring Gray, its owner, according to online court records.

According to the petition, obtained by PEOPLE, on May 16, Hedrick allegedly negligently caused the boy’s death by putting him on his back while tucking the sides of his personal blanket under his body, trapping his arms.

When the boy struggled, Hedrick allegedly turned him over onto his stomach “to further restrain” him, it says.

“She again tightened the blanket, trapping [his] arms under the blanket” before covering him with a weighted blanket weighing approximately 18.2 [lbs.],” it alleges.

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The weighted blanket, which did not belong to the family, covered the boy’s face and is used by staff to “subdue small children at naptime,” it alleges.

Hedrick “secluded” the boy from other children and staff by putting him in the hallway and further restrained him by placing her legs over his legs, it alleges.

After the child stopped struggling, Hedrick failed to check on him until she left the daycare center at 2 p.m., it claims.

Ashcraft’s mother, Tara Williams, filed her own lawsuit against Poppy’s Playhouse LLC alleging that an employee of the daycare, who was not named in this suit, “through the use of lower extremities, applied weight and pressure” to his “chest and/or abdomen, while he was [lying] down, in order to subdue” him “in an effort to sleep.”

Williams also alleges that the daycare center “failed to properly train and supervise its employees” and “knew and approved of the technique of using human extremities and/or other devices to apply weight and pressure to a child’s body in an effort to subdue a child into sleep.”

Lacey Hardie, Conrad’s aunt, told KDSK that Conrad was nonverbal with autism. In his obituary, Conrad is remembered as a boy who “loved swimming, Toy Story, Ms. Rachel, Cocomelon, and the movie Cars.”

“He also loved pizza and enjoyed spending time with his parents and his family,” the obituary reads.

Hedrick was arrested and is currently being held in the St. Francois County jail without bond. 

Gray “submitted her formal letter of resignation from her position as Ward 2 City Council member,” Mayor Stacey Easter said in a statement on May 20.

Because of this, Williams claims that the daycare failed to recognize when her son “was suffocating or had suffocated” and, allegedly, therefore, “was killed and remained [lying] on the floor of Defendant’s facility for hours without any effort to determine his wellbeing.”

Gray’s attorney did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.

Hedrick’s attorney Scott Rosenblum said in a statement to PEOPLE, “We have entered a plea of not guilty and look forward to defending Tiffany.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.