Mother who suffocated her baby at Fort Worth hospital sentenced to prison for abuse
A Tarrant County mother who suffocated her baby on multiple occasions was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Wednesday.
Shawna Bieber, 24, was caught on camera inside Cook Children’s Medical Center squeezing her then 7-month-old daughter against her chest until she went limp. She told medical staff that her daughter had suddenly stopped breathing on her own. Staff were able to revive the baby.
According to Tarrant County detectives, the Cleburne woman was likely faking her daughter’s illness as part of a syndrome called Munchhausen by proxy, a disorder in which a person exaggerates or creates medical symptoms in another to gain attention. Prosecutors said Bieber intentionally caused her daughter to stop breathing on 10 occasions.
She pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony charge of attempted injury to a child with serious bodily injury.
In February 2019, medical staff placed Bieber in a room with a camera when they suspected she was lying about her daughter’s medical condition. Bieber told nurses and staff that her daughter would “turn blue” and stop breathing on her own, but medical staff could find nothing wrong with the baby, according to court testimony.
“We are here because of this horrible, intentional act of suffocating a baby,” prosecuting attorney Katie Owens said at Wednesday’s sentencing. “We are not just talking about one time. We are talking about ten times. If she would have done this just a little bit longer, she would have killed her baby.”
Bieber’s defense attorney, Clay Graham, emphasized that Bieber has a low IQ, borderline personality disorder and had a chaotic, and potentially abusive, childhood in the foster care system. He argued she should be treated and given a chance to be rehabilitated, not sent to prison.
Bieber has signed over her parental rights to the child.
Psychologist Jeanine Galusha testified at the sentencing that she examined Bieber in jail and determined she had an IQ of 73 and her life had been “tumultuous and chaotic.” She said treatment might help Bieber over time, but added that Bieber had not accepted responsibility for hurting her child and showed a lack of empathy for her daughter.
Judge George Gallagher sided with prosecutors in his ruling, saying that his concern was “what could have happened versus what happened.”
Bieber had another daughter, Annabelle Rose Davis, who died in February 2016 at 3 months from what was ruled as natural causes. Owens described Annabelle’s death as “unusual and suspicious” and said the risk was too high that Bieber would harm children she might have in the future. The prosecution also argued Bieber had a history of lying and manipulation. Owens emphasized that Bieber told multiple different accounts of what led to her daughter’s suffocation.
While Bieber told medical staff her daughter stopped breathing on her own, she told a friend that she was trying to rid her daughter of a demon, according to an arrest affidavit written by Tarrant County investigator Michael Weber. A friend told Weber that Bieber said her dead daughter, Annabelle, had come back as a demon and was trying to take her new baby away. Bieber told the woman that she placed her hand over daughter’s mouth “in an attempt to get rid of the demon,” the arrest affidavit states.
Bieber had never mentioned a demon to anyone else, the investigator points out in his affidavit, and had told the baby’s father that if she hurt her daughter, she didn’t remember doing it.
