A woman has been spared any further time locked up and is now on probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter for suffocating her 2½-month-old son as the two slept together in the family's southern Minnesota home.
Probation for woman who fatally suffocated infant son as two slept on couch in Austin, Minn., home
The judge cites woman's willingness to be treated for drug abuse for departing downward from state sentencing guidelines.
October 26, 2023 at 12:58PM
Jocelyn L. Pater, 26, was sentenced in Mower County District Court to five years' probation and given credit for the 69 days she spent in jail after her arrest in connection with the death in December 2021 of Jett Pater in Austin.
Judge Kevin Siefken's sentence departs downward from state guidelines. However, if Pater violates the terms of her probation, he could impose a term of 4¾ years.
Siefken pointed out in a court filing upon sentencing that he chose not to send Pater to prison because of her willingness to seek treatment for chemical dependency. Pater admitted to police that she was using meth on a regular basis in the time leading up to her son's death, police disclosed in the criminal complaint.
According to the complaint:
Police were called to the home in the 400 block of SW. 27th Street on Dec. 13, 2021, about a baby not breathing. An officer found Jett on the living room floor. Responding ambulance personnel took the baby to the hospital. He died four days later.
Pater explained to the officer that she was packing up to move, laid down for a nap on the couch and included Jett "the same way that she always does, [and] she always wakes up when he moves," the complaint read.
The mother said a friend awakened her and pulled her away from Jett. The friend grabbed the boy, went to the next-door neighbor's home and called 911.
The friend told police she was at Pater's home to help her pack. The friend left briefly and returned to see Pater's chest in the face of Jett, who had turned purple and blue.
A law enforcement search of Pater's home turned up a syringe filled with suspected methamphetamine. A follow-up search led to the discovery of a digital scale, three needles, a meth pipe near a baby bottle and meth in a bag.
A baby bottle nipple was also seized, sent to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for testing, which revealed there was meth on it.
Pater admitted to a police detective that she was using meth daily and did so a day before Jett was suffocated.
An autopsy concluded that Jett died from asphyxiation and that he had meth in his system. However, the complaint read, it was "unclear if the presence of methamphetamine had any contribution to the cause of death."
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