Delaware mom pleads guilty to killing daughter, 4

A drug-abusing prostitute who beat her 4-year-old daughter to death in a seedy New Castle-area motel last year after being investigated four times for neglect by state child protection officials has quietly pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Tanasia C. Milligan, 27, had faced 15 years to life in prison if convicted of her original charge of first-degree murder by abuse. But Friday's plea – done without Superior Court's usual advance notice about a pending hearing, including the defendant's name – means Milligan now faces 10 to 25 years behind bars.

Autumn, a vivacious, curly-haired girl, who spoke unintelligible gibberish and had rotting teeth because her mother failed to address her developmental and medical needs, was killed by her mother in August 2014.

A November 2014 News Journal story about Autumn's death detailed how the state Division of Family Services investigated four neglect complaints about her mother – including one brought by her sisters that was active at the time of the girl's death. But child protection workers let Milligan keep the child and her 5-year-old brother, Ethan, even though they were living with a man alleged to be a pimp at the Budget Motor Lodge on U.S. 13, where Milligan sold her body and abused narcotics and other drugs. The state has since made and proposed several changes in how child abuse and neglect investigations are handled.

Milligan beat Autumn so badly that the child's bowel was perforated and fecal matter filled her intestinal canal, a state police detective testified at a court hearing soon after her October 2014 arrest.

Milligan admitted hitting the child a couple of days before Autumn died. The mother said she had become angry and spanked her daughter on the leg, but the girl tried to wriggle away and she "hit her on the stomach," the detective said. Autumn had small, circular abdominal bruises that looked like "knuckles from a fist," the detective testified.

"We're very satisfied with the resolution of the case,'' prosecutor Josette Manning said Monday after The News Journal learned about the plea deal from a tipster.

Manning said that until sentencing in January, she cannot comment on why Milligan was allowed to plead to a second-degree murder instead of taking her to trial. The state will seek 15 years behind bars, Manning said. Judge John A. Parkins Jr. has ordered a presentence investigation in the case.

Milligan has been held in lieu of $100,000 cash bail since her arrest a year ago. Her attorney, Natalie S. Woloshin, did not immediately return calls Monday.

Milligan's 35-year-old boyfriend and pimp, Willie J. Reeder, pleaded guilty earlier this year to felony child endangering for not calling 911 to save Autumn when the girl was near death in Room 406.

Reeder, who sometimes took care of Autumn and her brother, admitted to watching as the girl vomited bile and twisted in pain from abuse before being pronounced dead about 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2014.

Like Milligan, Reeder had originally been charged with first-degree murder by abuse or neglect. Reeder, who has a history of drug convictions and once was convicted of beating his own child, was sentenced to 3½ years behind bars in Autumn's death.

The state investigation into Autumn's death and the prior probes of Milligan found numerous flaws in how the cases were handled and in the child protection system. Despite the mother's history of ignoring case workers' orders to get medical and other help for the children, no one in authority decided she was an unfit mother whose children needed to be taken from her.

Among the mistakes, case workers failed to interview motel tenants who knew about the lifestyle of Milligan and Reeder, and they filled out a risk assessment improperly, causing a 2013 investigation that stated Milligan locked the two children in a room while she slept to be closed prematurely. Milligan was then working as a stripper.

"The key, overarching finding is that despite a history of ongoing, unresolved risks, the case was not identified as presenting sufficient risk to remove the children," said a five-page report released in February by Jennifer B. Ranji, secretary of the Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families, which oversees Family Services, including child protection.

Ranji said Autumn's death was a distressing anomaly in a system that receives over 18,000 hotline calls a year, conducts about 8,000 neglect or abuse investigations, and puts some 400 children in foster care.

The so-called "blue sheet'' that officials at New Castle County Courthouse distribute daily showed that the case had a status conference scheduled for Sept. 28.

Manning and Woloshin would not comment after that non-public meeting in Parkins' chambers, but checks of the courthouse case files afterward found that the case remained open and moving toward trial.

After a reporter learned from a source that Milligan had plead guilty, a check of court files Monday found that she had pleaded on Friday.

The "blue sheet'' for Friday lists the names of defendants in criminal cases and specifies what type of hearing is being held – for example, a trial, status conference or plea hearing. But for the case involving Milligan, all the sheet listed was that there was a "hearing,'' with the 10-digit case number, Parkins' name and the time. Milligan's name was nowhere to be found.

Woloshin could not be reached about the omission, but Manning said her office "fully expected the court to follow its standard procedure.''

Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr., who oversees the Delaware court system, said he had directed Superior Court, headed by President Judge Jan Jurden, to "look into'' the matter and "respond."

The issue of transparency, Strine said, "is one that we should and will take seriously."

Contact senior investigative reporter Cris Barrish at (302) 324-2785, cbarrish@delawareonline.com, on Facebook or Twitter @crisbarrish.