(Lawrenceburg, IN) – A Lawrenceburg woman who pled guilty to Reckless Homicide (Level 5 felony) has been sentenced.
Twenty-four-old Raeleigh Phillips-Steelsmith received the maximum six years in prison in a case stemming from an infant death investigation on Bellaire Drive in Lawrenceburg that began in March 2024.
Court documents indicate Phillips-Steelsmith left the infant strapped in a car seat for about 14 hours. She told investigators that she fell asleep and later found her infant son slouched in the car seat.
The infant was cold, blue, and limp.
Her friends performed CPR on the unresponsive infant and quickly transported him to St. Elizabeth Dearborn, where the child was pronounced dead.
An autopsy determined the probable cause of death was positional asphyxia.
“The death of an infant is horrible and certainly tragic. However, the circumstances of the death and the recklessness exhibited by Phillips-Steelsmith constitute Reckless Homicide,” said Dearborn County Prosecutor Lynn Deddens.
Both the State and defense attorneys presented evidence at this week’s sentencing hearing in Dearborn Superior Court II.
Judge Sally McLaughlin ruled that aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors, which resulted in a maximum sentence for Phillips-Steelsmith.
