A Florida mother charged with shaking her baby to death has pleaded guilty to second degree murder. Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested in January for killing her 3-month- old baby Dylan Lee Edmondson.
Tobias told investigators that she became enraged
because she was playing a computer game called
Farmville on Facebook and the baby wouldn't stop
crying.
The Jacksonville resident entered her plea on
Wednesday and is facing life in prison.
However, Prosecutor Richard Mantei said that Tobias'
sentence could be reduced because of state guidelines
that call for 25 to 50 years.
Presiding circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud gave no
indication as to what sentence he'll order during a
sentencing hearing scheduled for December.
Mr Mantei said outside the courtroom that Tobias' plea
means she will not have a jury trial and the family won't
have to relive the tragedy.
Tobias told authorities that after becoming annoyed by
her baby crying, she shook the tot.
She said she then smoked a cigarette to compose
herself but then picked him up and shook him again.
Tobias said that the baby may have hit his head during
the shaking.
Games like Farmville on the social networking site can
be very addictive with players spending hours on it.
FarmVille is an application on Facebook owned by the
company Zynga who after just 3 years in operation is
now worth $5.61billion.
Addictive: Farmville is the most popular application
on Facebook and has a total of 62 million active
users
The game is a real-time farm simulation that allows
players to manage a virtual farm by plowing land,
planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops.
The game is Facebook's most popular application with
over 62 million active users and over 24.6 million
Facebook application fans.
It hasn't been without controversy however as the
company has been accused of scamming users through
misleading offers, such as filling in bogus surveys or IQ
tests which in fact subscribed them to unwanted services
which appeared on their phone bill or sent them an ad
through email. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324599/Mother-pleads-guilty-shaking-baby-death-interrupting-playing-Farmville.html