Delaware Daycare Worker Arrested, Admits To Smothering Baby Because She Was “Fussy”

A 20-year-old woman faces 27 years in prison after confessing to smothering a baby girl that she claims was “fussy” and wouldn’t stop crying.

Dejoynay Ferguson of New Castle is also accused of abusing four other children at the daycare, PEOPLE reported.

Ferguson pleaded guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder by abuse, six counts of first-degree child abuse, and two second-degree child abuse counts.

Ferguson’s guilty plea comes nine months after a grand jury indicted her “for the repeated abuse and murder of a child, and the abuse of four other children in her care at the daycare facility where she was employed,” the Delaware Department of Justice stated.

The Delaware State Police and the state’s DOJ conducted an extensive investigation. The former daycare worker was indicted on July 13 of last year for a total of 53 felony counts of child abuse that happened between July 16 and September 5, 2019.

According to the DOJ, the plea “includes an acknowledgment of guilt for the murder, along with the other abuse alleged in the State’s indictment.”

In September 2019, the woman was arrested and charged with the death of a 4-month-old baby girl who was in her care at the Little People Child Development Center after daycare video surveillance captured her picking up the baby from the floor and putting her on a changing table.

She then “placed her hands over the infant’s mouth and nose” to “intentionally’ restrict her breathing until the baby became unresponsive, state police said.

Ferguson wore latex gloves while she held her hands over the baby’s face for three minutes.