A 16-month-old girl was smothered to death at her day care in North Carolina — when a worker there tried to force her to nap by lying on top of her while “scrolling on her phone,” a new lawsuit alleges.
Alexandra Coffey was arrested last year after baby Maddy Mitchell was found dead at Creative Beginnings in Lenoir on May 19, 2025. Coffey is awaiting a criminal trial for involuntary manslaughter.
Now, the girl’s family has brought a wrongful death suit against Coffey in Caldwell County for gross negligence.
It was Maddy’s first day of day care when she was placed on a mat for nap time. When the tot got up, Coffey put her face down on the mat, placed a blanket over her head, and laid on top of her torso and neck and used her legs to hold the child’s legs down, Law & Crime reported, citing the suit.
Meanwhile, the helpless girl thrashed her free leg — but Coffey held the position “for several minutes until her leg stopped moving” all “while scrolling on her phone,” the suit alleged.
The employee then got up and carried on with her day, not checking on the little girl for three hours — by which time she was dead and rigor mortis had set in, the filing claimed.
By the time first responders were called, they were unable to revive the little girl.
The facility was shut down by the health department after Maddy’s death. The health department previously found not all the staff had completed their CPR training, but that was corrected before the girl’s death, according to a report by local Channel 9.
The tot’s mom, Angel Blankenship, previously told Channel 9 she didn’t understand why Coffey wasn’t hit with more serious criminal charges.
“We are trying to get justice for Maddy,” the mom told the outlet at the time. “We don’t want this to happen to any other children. And we’re going to work on … to continue to fight for answers.”
Blankenship’s lawyer, Lisa Dubs, told the outlet her client is “very distraught over everything that happened.
“She does love her children and is very upset,” the lawyer said.
Coffey is freed on bond and a trial date has yet to be set.
One woman visiting the memorial for the baby outside the shuttered day care said, “She was just a baby.”
“It’s really, really sad, and to know the lady’s out walking around makes me sick,” the woman said.
Coffey didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
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