A mother in Indiana is accused of killing her newborn baby after she fell asleep while breastfeeding and suffocated the child last year — the second time she has killed one of her children in such a manner in three years.
Aaliyah M. Lykins was taken into custody last week and charged with one count of felony reckless homicide and one count of neglect of a dependent in the death of her daughter, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN, officers with the Muncie Police Department and emergency medical personnel with the Muncie Fire Department on Oct. 9, 20
3, responded to a call regarding an infant suffering from cardiac arrest. Muncie is about 65 miles northeast of Indianapolis.
The caller — later identified as Lykins — allegedly told the emergency dispatcher that she laid down to breastfeed her newborn and had unwittingly fallen asleep. When she awoke, the child was unresponsive.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders reportedly said they found the 2-week-old victim — who is not named in reports — inside of the residence and described the little girl as being “limp, with no signs of respiration.”
Medical personnel on site immediately transported the child to a local hospital where doctors pronounced her dead.
The Kansas City Star reported that Lykins spoke to one of the EMS workers on-site and appeared to invoke an eerily similar situation from several years prior.
“Oh no, I did it again,” she said, per the affidavit.
“Aaliyah Lykins was fully aware of the danger of co-sleeping with her infant … as she had a prior born child die while co-sleeping,” police reportedly wrote in the affidavit.
WXIN reported that Lykins on Oct. 30, 2020, killed her 2-month-old child, accidentally suffocating the newborn while co-sleeping with the victim in her bed.
In an affidavit obtained by the station, police reportedly wrote that Lykins told first responders she was aware that “she should not have placed (the child) in bed with her and that she knew it was wrong.”
While authorities in that case did pen an affidavit in connection with the incident, charges were never filed against Lykins in the 2020 case.
Court records show that Lykins has multiple criminal cases that are still pending in state circuit courts. Such cases include a January 2021 incident in which she was charged with battery resulting in bodily injury to a pregnant woman and neglect of a dependent; a November 2021 case in which she is charged with neglect of a dependent and leaving the scene of an accident after crashing into an unattended car; and a February 2023 case charging her with using a computer network or other form of electronic communication for harassment.
