A Carlinville woman has pleaded not guilty to the death of a toddler.
33-year-old Ashley N. Bottoms of Carlinville entered a plea of not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter, and endangering the life of a child in Macoupin County Court yesterday.
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 on October 20th, Bottoms was breaking up a fight between two juveniles at her Carlinville home, and allegedly threw the three-year boy against a half wall.
The boy’s head struck a ledge, leading to blunt force trauma and a brain bleed. 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 the Springfield State Journal-Register, Bottoms was the girlfriend of the boy’s father, and in which Macoupin County State’s Attorney Jordan Garrison says Bottoms then drove to Litchfield to pick up her boyfriend from work.
He says when someone in the car told Bottoms the child was unresponsive, she drove to the Litchfield Fire Department to get medical attention for the boy who was later pronounced deceased.
Bond for Bottoms was set in October at $250,000. She appeared in court remotely for a preliminary hearing on Thursday where a pre-trial hearing was set for January, 18th. She remains lodged at the Macoupin County Jail.
Bottoms faces between 3 and 14 years in prison if convicted on the class 2 felony involuntary manslaughter charge, and between 2 and 10 years for the class 3 felony endangering the life of a child charge.