According to the court documents,, prosecutors said that the office’s death penalty review committee will look into the case of the 35-year-old mother from California to determine whether she will face the death penalty.
Her name is Samantha Moreno Rodriguez and she allegedly confessed to police to killing Liam while they were hiking along the trail on May 28. The 35-year-old woman had found her son particularly unmanageable that morning on the trail and became frustrated by his unwillingness or inability to follow her directions.
She then allegedly shoved the boy, who fell along the trail, hit his head and began to scream in apparent distress louder than she had ever heard him scream before.
After her attempts to calm her child failed, Rodriguez reportedly pantomimed in response to investigators’ questions that she put her hands around her son’s throat to stop his screaming. She confirmed to police that she strangled her son for around 15 minutes before he first stopped screaming; he soon stopped breathing.
She then stripped her son and left only his naked body to be found. Police say she did that because she watched television crime shows and thought that, by removing his clothing, it would make it more difficult to associate him with her after she left the scene. The boy’s body was discovered around 7:30 a.m. on May 28 by hikers.