An Indiana mother will spend 16 years behind bars as part of a plea deal for letting her 7-year-old son die in a fire at their Shelbyville home.
Kirstin D. Bowers, 31, reached the deal with prosecutors Monday, nine months after a towering June blaze engulfed her house and left her son — little David Jr. — dead inside, WTHR reported.
Three of her other kids escaped, but police arrested Bowers within a month after her husband and neighbors both reported suspicious activity surrounding the fire.
She initially claimed the fire sparked after she fell asleep while smoking a cigarette, and that she woke up to find her bed engulfed in flames.
But her husband reported that they never smoke inside, while neighbors recalled hearing her yell “I f—ing hate you, and I hope everything you love dies” at him days before the fire, Fox59 reported.
And just days after the fire she began searching things like “manslaughter of child sentence Indiana,” and “voluntary manslaughter” online, with her husband reporting that she’d recently stopped taking a medication and started using meth instead.
When the fire started Bowers called 911, but hung up without talking to anybody and didn’t call back for 15 minutes.
She claimed she hung up because she was “freaking out” and trying to rescue her kids, but police noted in their incident report that she had no soot or smell of smoke on her.
Bowers also told police a bizarre tale that neighbors might report seeing her walking around their street before the fire — and claimed that she had been out and about about five minutes before the fire, but that she then went home and fell asleep smoking a cigarette in that time.
The home was completely engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived and her son’s body was found in the living room by the time it was put out.
Bowers will plead guilty to neglect of a dependent resulting in death, and will also face 14 years of probation upon her release and be required to follow a “strict compliance with any prescriptions” for medication.
