Mother charged in baby daughter's death

MILWAUKEE, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A criminal complaint charges a child-care worker in Milwaukee with reckless homicide in the co-sleeping death of her 6-day-old daughter.

The complaint says Rose Prescott, 30, could not remember whether she put her newborn daughter, Ceianna Buchanan, to sleep on a couch, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday.

Investigators allege Prescott was intoxicated March 8 and was unable to recall if she slept on the couch with Ceianna or slept on the floor. The infant was found unresponsive and facing the back cushion of the couch when Prescott awoke. An autopsy found the child died of "asphyxia due to suffocation due to overlaying by adult during co-sleeping on couch."

The co-sleeping death was the third in Prescott's family. The Journal Sentinel said Prescott was sleeping with her 2-month-old daughter, Brianna Buchanan-Prescott, April 17, 2008, when the child died in part due to co-sleeping causes. Brianna's 5-month-old half-sister, Cierra Buchanan, died in 1993 while co-sleeping with the child's grandmother and a 7-year-old relative.