A mom who beat her nine-week old son to death and buried him in remote woods has killed herself in prison.
The body of Kristen Bury was discovered by correctional staff after midnight on Saturday, the Sarasota County sheriff’s office said.
The 33-year-old was less than a year into a 25-year-sentence for killing her son Chance Walsh.
He had been buried just wearing his diaper.
Her husband, Joseph Walsh, is yet to face trial in Chance’s death.
Bury was expected to testify against him as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The sheriff’s office says deputies found Bury unresponsive in her cell on Saturday morning.
They performed CPR, but she was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
In a statement, Lt. Joe Giasone said the initial investigation ‘indicates a suicide.’ An autopsy is planned.
In January Bury pleaded no contest to aggravated manslaughter after the youngster’s remains were found in a shallow grave in October, a month after he was reported missing.
Walsh and Bury were arrested in South Carolina after getting into a car crash.
Chance wasn’t in the car, but his grandmother Sally Susino called police saying she feared for the boy’s well-being.
Police say Walsh suffocated the boy by stuffing a baby wipe in his mouth before the pair hid the body in nearby woods.
Chance was left to rot in his crib and then a closet for more than a week until his mother complained about the smell, according to a probable cause affidavit.
His parents then allegedly buried Chance in a shallow grave less than 13 miles from his home. He had been missing for more than a month when his body was found.
After she was sentenced, Bury’s mother, Sally Susino, told the court her daughter allegedly had three children and she traded her firstborn son in exchange for money, a car and an apartment.
The fate of that child remains unknown.
Her second son, Duane, died in 2014, two weeks after his birth from a suspected kidney infection.
Bury had taken a plea deal that required her to testify against Chance’s father, Joseph Walsh, in an upcoming trial expected to start in November.