Mom gets 50 years for giving son fatal dose of pills, burning body
INSIDE EDITION - A Maryland mom who admitted to giving her 5-year-old son a fatal dose of anti-allergy drugs before setting his body on fire has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for the horrifying crime.
Narges Shafeirad, 35, was sentenced in a Montgomery County courtroom Monday after she pleaded guilty in July to first-degree murder in the death of her son, Daniel Dana.
Prosecutors said Shafeirad tried faking a car accident by dousing her car with fuel and setting it on fire near a highway with her son inside.
An autopsy would later conclude that Daniel died from an overdose of diphenhydramine, which is marketed under the brand name Benadryl.
Prosecutors said the child had suffered facial injuries before he died, possibly caused by her forcing him to swallow the equivalent of a 4-ounce bottle of children’s Benadryl, the paper said.
Daniel could have suffered convulsions, blurred vision and vomiting before his death, authorities said.
Officers arrived last June to find Shafeirad’s car in flames by the side of a highway and the mother facedown and screaming outside the vehicle.
She told them she had put containers of gasoline in the car because she feared running out of fuel on a trip to the beach. She lit a cigarette and accidentally set the car on fire, she said.
Authorities did not initially see the child inside the vehicle because his body was covered in clothes and debris, the paper reported.
The woman had been was locked in a bitter divorce and custody battle with her husband, The Washington Post reported.
Both sides reportedly had accused the other of physical and emotional abuse. Each parent had filed for a restraining order against the other.
"When you look at the depravity — she murdered her son and attempted to cover it up — it's awful," Capt. Darren Francke of the Montgomery Police Department told the paper at the time.