A 31-year-old father in Iowa will spend several decades behind bars after admitting to his role in killing his newborn daughter by instructing and coaching his girlfriend on how to drown the child in the bathtub immediately after she was born to prevent police from finding meth in her system.
Thoma in July reached a deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of child endangerment resulting in death and one count of abuse of a corpse.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped one count of first-degree murder Thoma had initially been facing.
Kayleen’s mother, Taylor K. Blaha, who had also been facing a first-degree murder charge, earlier this month pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in her daughter’s death.
She was similarly sentenced to 35 to 50 years in prison during a hearing last week.
The couple also have a son together who was 2 years old at the time of Kayleen’s death.
“He convinced me that the only way out of this was to drown the baby in the bathtub,” she said. “He told me what to do and how to do it. When I tried to take my hands off her, he would put my hands back on her and encourage me to keep going. She died as a result.”
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