A Missouri mother, Emma Rigdon, 20, has been arrested and charged with two felony counts of abuse or neglect of a child. Rigdon filmed herself suffocating her infant son with her hand and later a blanket, and then sent the clips to acquaintances while saying the acts gave her a “rush.”
The first video Rigdon filmed shows the mother as she “pinched” and “slapped” the child, causing “the victim to cry.” This was just the beginning of the abuse. The “defendant then placed her hand over the nose and mouth” of the infant, causing “him difficulty in breathing and to flail his arms and legs.”
Shortly after sharing the first video, Rigdon made a second video that police said was even worse. Rigdon “placed a blanket and her hand over [the infant]’s face, causing [him] to cry and to grab vigorously at blanket.”
The messages she sent along with the videos were damning too. “IDK when I do that, I feel happy like adrenalin rush,” Rigon texted her acquaintance according to police. “I be stopping right before he dies. Last time he was blue,” she said.
The texts leave no doubt as to what the intention behind Rigdon’s actions was. “I really wanna kill him but I don’t want to go to jail,” she wrote. “So it’s unfortunate. He’s just gonna have to pay for his existence.”
The infant survived the ordeal, but no details about his current caregivers have been made public, according to Law&Crime. The name and age of the child have also not been released. No other information about Rigdon’s behavior or criminal history has been made available by police.
Rigdon is being held without bond at St. Louis City Justice Center. Her next court date is scheduled for April 24.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The U.S. Sun.
