A Macoupin County woman who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter of a child was sentenced to prison time this morning.
33-year-old Ashley N. Bottoms of Carlinville pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter as an open plea in Macoupin County Court in early April.
Bottoms was arrested for causing the death of a 3-year-old male child after a report was made at the Lichfield Fire Station on October 20th, that a minor child was in distress and moments later determined the child was deceased.
Charging documents allege that earlier that day, Bottoms was breaking up a fight between two juveniles at her Carlinville home, and threw the three-year boy, later identified as Hunter Lee Drew, against a half wall where his head struck a ledge, leading to blunt force trauma and a brain bleed. According to a report by the Springfield State Journal-Register, Bottoms was the girlfriend of the boy’s father.
The charging documents are reported as saying that Bottoms observed that the boy was “in distress” from the head injury but did not seek medical care for him, instead driving him around in a vehicle for three hours.
According to a report by WICS, Bottoms was sentenced to serve 11 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections this morning by Macoupin County Associate Judge Joshua Meyer.
Bottoms faced between 3 and 14 years in prison on the charge.