Mom Accused of Fatally Shooting Baby Son Because She Didn’t Want to Give Up Custody By Christina Coulter

A months-long custody fight over a baby boy ended in horror just days before Christmas, after a Wyoming mother allegedly shot her 11-month-old son in the face rather than surrender him to his father.

Madeline Daly, 35, is accused of killing her son, Basil Stoner, on Dec. 23 after fleeing Wyoming with the child in defiance of a court order granting custody to the boy’s father, Jake Stoner. Daly has been charged in New Mexico with an open count of first-degree murder, a capital offense, and child abuse resulting in death, according to a press release from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff’s deputies were alerted late that morning that Daly — who was wanted on a felony kidnapping warrant out of Wyoming — might be in the Mimbres, N.M., area, according to the press release. As deputies searched the area, they spotted a woman carrying a child and rushing into a nearby RV.

Deputies tried repeatedly to reach Daly before eventually speaking with her by phone, according to the press release. She refused to come out of the RV, and deputies called in a SWAT team after learning she might be armed with a handgun.

Before officers could intervene, a gunshot rang out, and deputies rushed inside the RV, according to the press release. Inside, they found Daly with a handgun pointed at her head and her infant son suffering from a gunshot wound.

Life-saving measures were immediately taken, and the child was transported to be flown to a hospital, but he died before he could be airlifted.

Daly was arrested at the scene and taken to the Grant County Detention Center, where she remains behind bars as her case moves through the court system, per the press release.

During a subsequent court hearing, prosecutors alleged Daly shot the baby in the face rather than allow him to be placed in his father’s custody, a detail described in court and reported by Cowboy State Daily.

The killing followed a bitter custody dispute in Wyoming, where Stoner had gone to court seeking access to his son after Daly allegedly cut off contact. When Daly failed to appear at a scheduled hearing, a judge granted Stoner emergency temporary custody, and Daly allegedly fled the state with the child, according to Cowboy State Daily, KRQE, and KOAT.

Stoner reported his son missing on Nov. 19, prompting a felony kidnapping warrant and a weekslong manhunt until a tip led deputies to New Mexico, the outlets reported.

In a GoFundMe created in Basil’s memory, organizers described Stoner’s long fight to be part of his son’s life, writing that after his first court-ordered visits, he was finally able “to enjoy what he had dreamed of for the better part of his adult life: to be a father.”

“All he ever wanted to do was be a father,” the GoFundMe states.

Daly has not entered a plea. If convicted, she faces the possibility of life in prison.