Mother of 1-Year-Old Found Dead in Dresser Drawer Blames Boyfriend, Police Say

The mother of a 1-year-old girl whose body was found in a dresser in Indiana has taken a plea deal and will now work with the police, according to court records.

Madison Marshall, who is 25 years old, will admit that she didn’t take care of Oaklee Snow when she was sick or injured, which led to her death.

Several charges were brought against the defendant in March 2023 in Harnett County, North Carolina. These included neglect of a dependent resulting in death, neglect of a dependent resulting in serious injury, neglect of a dependent with endangerment, neglect of a dependent with abandonment, and two counts of helping a criminal commit murder.

Marshall agreed to the plea deal that the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office offered on April 25. A change of plea meeting is set for May 1 to make the plea official. Then, a few days later, she will probably speak against the man who is accused of killing her daughter.

Roan Waters, who is 27 years old, is going to be tried by a jury on May 12 for murder, neglect of a dependent resulting in death, neglect of a dependent resulting in serious injury, battery resulting in bodily damage to a person under 14, and neglect of a dependent.

Oaklee and her 7-month-old brother were taken from Oklahoma to Indianapolis in January 2023. Oaklee was just shy of 2 years old at the time. The people in charge say that Marshall and Waters did it. Zachary Snow, the children’s father, said that both of his children were missing.

Snow told the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office that Marshall and Waters took his son and daughter from their home on January 19, 2023, without his permission. They then ran away to Indiana to stay with Waters’ mother.

It’s still not clear where or how the young girl was killed, but her body was hidden somewhere along the way.

The boy was finally reunited with his father after being found alone in what the police called a “trap house,” which is slang for a house where drugs are kept. However, Oaklee’s body would not be found for months.

There was a nationwide search for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who was 2 feet tall and 35 pounds. In late April 2023, Marshall, who was already in police custody, led them to an empty house in Morgantown where Oaklee’s abused and broken body was hidden in a dresser.

Law&Crime got a probable cause statement from Marshall that said Waters would regularly “whoop” Oaklee as a form of punishment for any perceived misbehavior, such as “holding a fork wrong,” urinating in her diaper, and other behaviors that are normal for toddlers. The man is also said to have “choked her out” several times.

Police say she also told them Oaklee had stopped eating around Waters because “he regularly became aggressive with her when she would not eat at the rate that he wanted her to.”

Marshall told the police that the death happened on February 9, 2023.

The girl’s mother said she heard Waters yelling at Oaklee over and over in the living room to bounce on a plastic ball with a handle or else. As the document says, Marshall went in to check on them after the fifth and loudest time he yelled at her. She saw Waters “standing over Oaklee as she sat trying to bounce on the ball.”

She went back to the kitchen and said she saw Waters sitting on the couch. After a few minutes, the girl’s mother said she heard Waters scream for her daughter and that she had “never heard him sound like that before.”

The statement says, “She met him in the hallway while he had Oaklee in his arms.” “She saw that Oaklee wasn’t moving.” R. Waters kept saying, “I didn’t do anything” and “it wasn’t his fault,” even when no one asked him to. At first, he wouldn’t let Marshall take Oaklee from him, so he took her clothes off. Marshall could see that Oaklee’s chest and stomach were getting bigger, like she was trying to breathe. She did notice, though, what looked like a mix of blood and spit dripping from her mouth when she tried to breathe out, making a wheezing sound. During this whole time, Oaklee’s eyes stayed closed.

By that time, the girl was probably dead or dying, but Marshall told police that Waters would not let the girl’s mother call 911. The document says Waters instead wrapped Oaklee in a blanket and put her in the back of his car with Marshall. She also told the cops that when she opened the blanket to check on her daughter, Oaklee had stopped breathing and her lips were blue.

The statement says, “Marshall touched her skin, which felt cool to the touch.” “While she held her, she could no longer feel her heartbeat either.” When Marshall pulled Oaklee’s eyelids back to look at her more closely, he saw that they were still and not moving. She held Oaklee’s hand and then climbed up to sit next to R. Waters in the front seat.

Marshall said she and Waters drove to the abandoned house together. She was said to be “hysterical and sobbing” when she led police to the horrible scene. There, her boyfriend at the time took Oaklee’s body from the car, went into the building through a window, and soon after, came out by himself.

Oaklee’s body was found in the bottom drawer of the chest, all but broken up. The police said that her left leg was “clearly broken at the knee” because her left foot was resting right on top of her chest.

A “homicide of unspecified means” was found to have killed the girl in June 2023 by the Morgan County Coroner’s Office. Following a few months, Marshall and Waters were caught in Colorado and sent back to Marion County in Indiana.

Now, Marshall could get 25 years in prison for her help with the charge of abuse resulting in death. According to court papers obtained by Bedford, Indiana-based radio station WBIW, prosecutors are also likely to ask for a sentence of two years in prison for the remaining neglect charge. This would be served concurrently, or at the same time.