An Oregon woman was sentenced to 30 days in jail Tuesday, Sept. 12, for dousing her toddler son with water in 2021 and putting him in a freezer to see if the child’s father would notice.
A spokesperson for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to PEOPLE that Sharday McDonald, 30, was convicted and taken into custody on Sept. 12 for first-degree battery on Oct. 28, 2021, and tampering with a witness the next day. According to Law and Order, the witness tampering charge was related to a separate incident.
The spokesperson also told PEOPLE that McDonald will be released on Oct. 6, which Multnomah County Detention Center records also show. According to Law & Crime, McDonald will also be on supervised probation for three years after his release.
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Portland-based Fox 12 Oregon news station KPTV reported, and court records confirm, that McDonald pleaded guilty on July 28 to both felony charges, as well as identity theft, after changing her original plea of not guilty on Nov. 19 in 2021
According to the media release, court documents show that on Oct. 28, 2021, police responded to a report that McDonald had put her baby in the freezer at their home in Gresham.
A police officer heard McDonald yelling to her child’s father, Kendrick Neal, “I’m going to show you real quick. You don’t want him? Let me show you about this little fucking baby, I don’t give a fuck about it,” according to the affidavit of the alleged the cause, according to KPTV and Law and crime.
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Prosecutors said in court that the officer saw McDonald holding her child in a blanket when she answered the front door, Fox 13 Seattle reported.
According to Law and Crime, police records show that “defendant Sharday Brianna McDonald told the officer she was not trying to hurt, injure or kill her son [name redacted] by drowning it or putting it in the freezer.”
However, the officer said that before McDonald’s arrest, he saw a photo showing her “holding [the infant] by the overalls, but at a downward angle, where his hip, legs and feet were higher than his head (almost upside down) with water running over his face,” according to KPTV.
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“The only place the water could have gone (in that picture) was his nose (at that angle),” the officer said. “It looked like [the child] trying to hold his breath while the water poured over his face.”
As the officer was arresting McDonald, she said she doused her baby with water as a “test” done “out of spite” to see if Neal would “give up at all” and return to their apartment, according to KPTV.
The media reported that a doctor speaking on behalf of the prosecution told the court that the baby was probably unable to breathe based on the photographs and that this could have led to death.
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