JESSUP, Md. (WJZ) — She was possessed by an evil spirit. That’s the claim an Annapolis mother made after police say she smothered her 2-year-old child to death. The girl’s body was found in garbage on its way to a landfill.

Meghan McCorkell has more from the community where this happened.

Police say they got a tip that something may be wrong after neighbors hadn’t seen that 2-year-old girl for days. Now her mother faces murder charges.

The body of Kassidey Booth was discovered Thursday night in a pile of garbage at a waste management facility in Jessup. Police say her mother, 25-year-old Chelsea Booth, confessed to killing the child.

According to charging documents, Booth told police her daughter was “suffering from a Muslim curse placed on her by her father.” She claimed Kassidey “was possessed by an evil spirit.”

A neighbor reported the little girl missing.

“The mother at first had a plausible story about the child being elsewhere. But we continued to follow up and were able to confirm that the child was not where she said it was,” Detective Amy Miguez said.

Investigators say Booth told them she laid on top of the toddler until she stopped breathing. Booth told investigators she then wrapped the child’s body in a blanket and put it inside a dumpster at her apartment complex.

A close friend of Booth’s says she’d been acting strangely.

“She changed after a certain period of time. For the past two days she wasn’t talking to nobody,” said Tanea Surgeon.

Neighbors at the Bay Ridge Gardens Apartments say they often saw the mother and child.

“It was a normal thing, I was just surprised,” said one neighbor.

“I was very shocked. I was very shocked, I didn’t know what was going on,” said John Tarr.

Friends say they never saw this coming.

“Just for me to know I had my child around her, it just… It just freaks me out,” Surgeon said.

Chelsea Booth now faces first-degree murder charges.

If convicted, Booth could potentially face the death penalty. She is being held without bail.

Booth is mother to another child. That little girl is OK.