An Alaska mom convicted of murdering her two young daughters, years apart, will spend decades behind bars, prosecutors said.
Stephany Elizabeth Bilecki, who formerly used the last name LaFountain, was sentenced Dec. 9 to 130 years in prison, with 85 years suspended, in the deaths of her 4-month-old and 13-month-old children, the Alaska Department of Law wrote in a news release.
Bilecki, 29, pleaded guilty earlier this year in Fairbanks to one count of second-degree murder for each child, officials said.
Bilecki’s 4-month-old daughter, Chyanne, died in 2015, officials said.
At the time, officials suspected sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, although “later investigation revealed minor injuries consistent with suffocation,” according to officials.
Officials said Bilecki told her boyfriend and mother in phone calls that the infant was dead, and then called 911 about 10 minutes later, “just before her mother arrived.”
Chyanne had been a healthy baby, officials said.
Bilecki’s 13-month-old daughter, Jasmine, died in 2017, according to officials.
Again, Bilecki placed calls to others before dialing 911, officials said.
She tried to reach her husband, who was deployed, and her in-laws to say Jasmine wasn’t breathing, according to officials.
“Just before her in-laws arrived at the house, she finally called 911,” officials said.
Officials later went through her phone and found searches and website visits within an hour of her 911 call “involving ‘ways to sufficate’ (sic), ‘ways to kill a human with no proof,’ ‘drugs that can kill ppl with no trase’ (sic), ‘can drowning show in an o autopsy report’ (sic), ‘16 steps to kill someone and not get caught’ and other similar searches and sites,” according to officials.
An autopsy found Jasmine died from lack of oxygen, officials said.
Fairbanks District Attorney Joe Dallaire said “the conduct forming the basis of defendant Bilecki’s convictions shocks the conscience.”
While “we cannot pretend that anything will ever make up for the losses suffered by the fathers of these babies or their other family members, I do hope the convictions and the sentences imposed affords some measure of justice to the families of Jasmine and Chyanne and to the Fairbanks community at large,” Dallaire said in the news release.
Fairbanks is a 358-mile drive northeast from Anchorage.
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