Woman gets 25 years for trying to kill infant niece with poisoned breast milk

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — An Indiana woman has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for trying to poison her infant niece by adding crushed painkillers to a bottle of breast milk. Nineteen-year-old Sarai Rodriguez-Miranda was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to attempted murder in March.

Authorities say the Fort Wayne woman tried to poison her niece in January 2017 because she was angry that her mother was allowing her brother, his fiance and the then 11-week-old baby to live with them for longer than expected.

Rodriguez-Miranda was arrested in Michigan in September.

CBS affiliate WANE reports that In January, Rodriguez-Miranda's mother found text messages on the cellphone the two shared in which her daughter told her own boyfriend about her attempts to kill the then-11-week-old girl.

"I'm gonna crush up some of these pills since she decided they can stay longer and kill their baby," Rodriguez-Miranda allegedly wrote in a Jan. 12 text.

In other texts, she allegedly wrote "I hope she dies" and told her boyfriend that, "I thought it was funny that I don't have an ounce of guilt." One of the text messages reportedly included a photo of a mortar and pestle with a white powder.

The station reports that after reading the texts, Rodriguez-Miranda's mother took screen shots of the text messages and checked two bottles of breast milk kept in the home's refrigerator. She found that one bottle contained milk darker than the other and had residue at the bottom of the bottle and a greenish-colored ring.

The mother told police she had not used either bottle to feed the child, but she took the infant and the child's mother to a hospital emergency room. No signs of poisoning were detected in the baby.

The baby was not harmed, but the milk stored in a refrigerator contained the equivalent of nine Excedrin tablets or capsules, enough to kill an adult, according to court documents.

The child's mother told WANE-TV after Friday's hearing that she's "just glad this is over."