Baltimore woman enters plea in 2019 killing of her toddler

A Baltimore woman admitted in court Monday that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove she suffocated and killed her toddler in 2019.

Shakira Shaw, 27, entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder in the death of her son, 22-month-old Kaleb Shaw. An Alford plea acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction, but allows the person to maintain their innocence.

Shaw told detectives she had for about a month been hearing voices, related to a child she lost in a miscarriage and a pregnancy she terminated, and that those voices instructed her to kill Kaleb, according to charging documents.

Circuit Judge Charles H. Dorsey sentenced Shaw to 40 years in prison, with all but 20 years incarceration suspended, the prosecutors’ spokesperson said. Dorsey ordered Shaw to five years of probation upon release, including a mental health evaluation, and included a condition that she have no unsupervised contact with a minor.

People convicted of crimes of violence in Maryland become eligible for parole after serving 50% of their sentence. Ultimately, it’s up to the parole commission to decide whether to grant someone early release, and they consider a variety of factors, including potential input from victims or their surviving family members.

Shaw originally stood trial on the charges stemming from Kaleb’s death last fall, but a judge declared a mistrial.

Calling it an “incredibly tragic case,” public defenders Stephanie Salter and Janine Meckler, who represented Shaw, noted that the medical examiner ruled Kaleb died of natural causes and amended their determination on the cause of death to homicide only after Shaw confessed to police following “a significant mental health crisis.”

The case, Salter and Meckler said, “highlights the difficult choice that defendants must make — fight to prove their innocence, with the risk of receiving a life sentence; or accept the certainty that comes with accepting an agreed upon resolution. For Ms. Shaw, the trauma of another trial — after already going to trial with no resolution — and the risk of a life sentence made the option of entering an Alford plea, where she maintains her innocence, the best choice for her.”

On Dec. 28, 2019, police officers responded around 7 p.m. to an apartment in Baltimore’s Old Town neighborhood after someone called about a baby who was unresponsive, according to charging documents for Shaw. When police arrived, fire department medics were already there attempting to resuscitate Kaleb, and ultimately took him to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Kaleb died at the hospital around 7:30 p.m. Police said an investigator collected his one-piece jumper as evidence in his death.

When detectives first spoke to Shaw, she told them Kaleb had been sleeping on her shoulder, before she rolled him over and left the room to shower, according to charging documents. Shaw told detectives Kaleb’s lips were blue and that he was cold to the touch when she returned.

Police said they got a search warrant for the apartment Shaw had been staying in with Kaleb, confiscating as evidence bedding and a yellow cup containing liquid.

In the meantime, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner did an autopsy on Kaleb, originally determining he died of natural causes, according to charging documents.

More than six months after Kaleb’s death, in August of 2020, charging documents say, Shaw called the Baltimore County Police Department saying she “wanted to ask how long someone would go to jail for admitting they did something for their deceased child.”

When county police went to the residence where Shaw was living and spoke to her, she allegedly told them she suffocated and killed Kaleb, according to charging documents. County police contacted the city homicide detectives, who brought Shaw in for an interview.

After waiving her Miranda rights, Shaw told detectives about getting an abortion in 2016 and suffering a miscarriage in November of 2019, according to charging documents.

“Ms. Shaw advised that she was hearing voices from the two babies, and that the voices were telling her to kill Kaleb,” detectives wrote. “Ms. Shaw advised that on the day of the incident, the voices became overwhelming.”

She told detectives she suffocated Kaleb with her hand until he stopped breathing, according to charging documents.

The medical examiner’s office changed Kaleb’s death certificate days after Shaw spoke to police, ruling he died in a “homicide by asphyxia.”