BERRIEN COUNTY, MICHIGAN: A former healthcare nurse in Michigan has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a three-year-old child in her care while "shot up" on meth. Judith Maria Sobol, 42, was ordered by the Berrien County Court Judge Angela Pasula to serve a prison time of 30 to 75 years behind bars for the death of Ophelia Mazure in 2022.
Shelby Mazure, mother of the young dead girl testified at the murder trial of Sobol stating that her child who was born with severe medical issues required a ventilator and constant monitoring. On the night of her daughter's death, the in-home nurse who was high on meth was assigned to care for the child, reported Law and Crime.
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Ophelia was 'growing and thriving'
At the trial, Mazure said that the three-year-old girl was "a very special child who loved music, loved cartoons, loved going to school, and was growing and thriving." In February 2023, Sobol was found guilty of one count of possession of a controlled substance - methamphetamine, and one count of second-degree murder.
On June 20, 2022, Coloma Township Police Department officers responded to a 911 call about a young girl not breathing. After they arrived at the scene, responders found the child and both of her parents inside the victim's room. The child's father performed CPR on her and it remains unclear how long Ophelia had been unconscious.
According to the police, Ophelia's parents stated that they found their daughter and the killer lying on the ground. The couple then noted that Ophelia's tracheal breathing tube could not be found anywhere near her and its connecting components were later found scattered in her room.
Ophelia passed out without connecting the child's trachea tube
The victim was shifted to Watervliet's Spectrum Lakeland Hospital where she was declared dead after she succumbed to her injuries. "Through an investigation, the officers found out that was the registered nurse that was supposed to care for the child throughout the night. After the investigation was completed, we determined that she was high on methamphetamines and should not have been in the care of that child," said Wes Smigielski, Coloma Township Police Chief.
The murderous woman allegedly confessed that before she arrived for work, she "shot up" meth and also admitted to being responsible for the three-year-old child's death because she was "not in the right state of mind to be at work and should have never come to work at all."
She allegedly told investigators that she had also shot up meth before coming to work on each of the four days before the child’s tragic death. During her arrest, Sobol reportedly had two pipes and a container meth and the trachea tube for the child may have been disconnected when she was cleaning it as she "passed out or fell asleep without the trachea tube being properly replaced," reported Law and Crime.
