Elizabeth Anne Case appears in a mugshot. (Limestone County Sheriff’s Office)
An Alabama woman is facing a new murder charge that replaces a previous murder charge over the years-ago hot car death of her 13-month-old toddler, an indictment reportedly filed Thursday says.
Elizabeth Anne Case, 40, was initially charged with one count of capital murder of a child in 2019 when she was 36. Now, nearly four years later, that charge was dismissed when a Limestone County grand jury charged her instead with one count each of felony murder, reckless manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse.
Casen Case died in October 2019. Authorities said he had been left alone in a car overnight while his mother was dumpster diving.
The baby boy was buckled into a front-facing car seat that was not strapped to the car itself, the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office said in the immediate aftermath of the child’s death.
Law enforcement alleges the defendant was dumpster diving in both Limestone and nearby Madison counties while she left her son in the car. She allegedly returned home around 5:40 a.m. and went to sleep – leaving the boy alone. Elizabeth Case only awoke the next afternoon, at around 1:30 p.m., when the boy’s grandmother Theresa Moss came over to visit the boy she dearly loved at his mother’s house in Toney, a tiny unincorporated community, according to Huntsville-based CBS affiliate WHNT.
Law enforcement said the grandmother began banging on the door when Casen Case was nowhere to be found. Upon waking up, the two began a search and found the child inside the vehicle.
Upon making the discovery, the boy’s mother allegedly did not immediately seek help from law enforcement or emergency medical services but, instead, took him inside her house and into the shower.
Again Moss was the proactive one, authorities allege, putting the boy inside her car, calling 911, and rushing to meet Athens Police Department officers at the intersection of two highways.
Case was first arrested for murder immediately after that. She was indicted for capital murder on Jan. 3, 2022. She pleaded not guilty to that charge on Feb. 25, 2020. A jury trial in the case was slated for November, but the trial was canceled in the wake of the superseding indictment being filed.
In March 2021, Casen Case’s aunt, Laura Barnett, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Elizabeth Case, the Alabama Department of Human Resources, and the director and program director of the Limestone County Department of Human Resources, according to WHNT.
Birmingham-based attorney Tommy James said the state received numerous reports the boy had been abused and sat on their hands.
“These workers are paid with our tax dollars to protect children like Casen, and yet they did nothing,” the attorney said at the time. “His death is heartbreaking and should never have happened. Instead of fighting in court, we ask DHR to join us and those who loved Casen to search for the truth and to find out how this happened and to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening to another child.”
Barnett castigated the boy’s mother in comments to Knoxville, Tennessee-based CBS affiliate WVLT.
“That child is the very first thing that comes out of your car when you get out,” she told the TV station. “If you have groceries in your car, if there’s milk that can spoil, it can be replaced. That baby cannot.”
The boy’s aunt is not likely to be pleased by the latest slate of charges that replaced the initial capital murder charge.
“I don’t think she should be able to have a lesser charge than what she’s charged with,” Barnett said a few days after Casen Case died. “I think murder is a charge that needs to stick with her to the fullest. I think she should be prosecuted to the fullest.”
Moss recalled one of her favorite moments with the boy she lost in comments to WVLT: “He would say ‘Gigi, Gigi!’ I’d say ‘What baby? What angel?’ He would say ‘I love my GiGi, I love you.’ And I would say ‘Your Gigi loves you, too,’ He was my angel. He was my pride and joy is what he was.”
Since her initial arrest, Elizabeth Case has been detained in the Limestone County Jail without bond. At the time of her arrest, the boy’s mother was out on bond for a robbery charge. Deputies told multiple local media outlets that the accused killer was a “known drug user.”
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Elizabeth Case charged with toddler son’s murder – again