Doctor: It was the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen in my life

Attempted murder charges were dropped Friday when a mother accused of smothering her 11-month-old daughter woman pleaded guilty to felony child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury.

Meredith Stilwell, 22, of Hickory was arrested on Jan. 27, 2009, at the hospital after a hidden camera in her daughter's hospital caught her smothering her daughter, Alexa.

Stilwell has not seen her four-year-old son or daughter, now two years old, since her arrest by order of the court. The children's father, Scott Stillwell, has custody of the children.

He told the court that his daughter has made a full recovery since her mother's arrest.

The prosecution and defense called witnesses to the stand to testify before the sentencing scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Stilwell's daughter had been in and out of hospitals for most of her life, having major surgeries and hundreds of tests to try to determine what was causing her to stop breathing for nearly two minutes at a time.

"When we watched the video, we were able to see why," said Dr. Kerry Van Voorhis of Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte.

The footage shows Stilwell, a registered nurse, holding her daughter and kissing her while a nurse is in the child's hospital room. When the nurse leaves, Stilwell puts the baby down and methodically checks to make sure all the monitors and sensors are attached properly so the alarms would sound when she stopped her baby from breathing, Van Voorhis said.

"I saw Ms. Stilwell pinch Alexa's nose and placing her hand over her mouth," he said. "All the while, Alexa was kicking, struggling and trying to get air. Then she stopped moving and Ms. Stillwell laid her back on the bed and sat down calmly in a chair."

Van Vorhiss said he put the hidden camera in the room on Friday, Jan. 23, 2009, because he sus-pected Stilwell was intentionally hurting her baby. He checked the tape the following Tuesday. He was able to match each of Alexa's episodes with footage of her mother suffocating her. Once, Stillwell smothered her baby while her husband was in the hospital room's bathroom taking a shower.

Van Vorhiss said he was concerned for the baby's safety, but he refused to say why he waited four days to review the tapes.

The doctor reported Stilwell to the police. She was arrested and admitted to detectives that she'd intentionally stopped her child from breathing.

After spending four months in jail, Stilwell was released on bond and began psychiatric treatment.

Dr. Paula Bortnichak performed a psychiatric evaluation on Stilwell.

She told the court that she diagnosed Stilwell with Factitious Disorder by Proxy, better known as Munchausen's Syndrome, a mental disorder that compels people to create medical conditions for attention.

Stilwell has bi-polar disorder and postpartum depression and never bonded properly with her daughter. When Alexa was born premature, Stilwell became irrationally convinced that her medical conditions, common among premature babies would persist and worsen, Bortnichak said.

This irrational belief compelled Stilwell to give her baby small doses of the sleep medication Ambien and children's Benadryl to make Alexa groggy. She would smother her to make her oxygen levels drop. Stilwell told Bortnichak she wanted Alexa to appear mysteriously ill so the doctors would continue to treat her.

She was afraid her daughter would die if she acted healthy and the doctors abandoned her.

Bortnichak said Stilwell's mental health problems, brought about by a lifetime of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, caused her irrational beliefs and behavior.

Stilwell's lawyer asked the judge to sentence Stilwell to six months in jail with no credit for the four months she's already served. She also asked the judge to sentence Stilwell to five years of probation and to require her to complete a year-long mental health court program while living with her grandparents in Brunswick County.

Alexa's grandfather took the stand and asked for justice.

Alexa's father told the judge, "I'm fighting for my daughter's life – she's not old enough to fight for herself."

Assistant district attorney Kelly Miller said probation is not sufficient for what Stilwell did to her baby.

"Let the punishment fit the crime," she said.