Nearly five years ago, a Nashville woman was charged with multiple felonies related to the death of her 7-month-old daughter.
Last week, she plead guilty to one of those charges and the rest were dismissed.
Anna Prewitt-Byers, 20, was arrested Oct. 17, 2018 and charged in Monroe Circuit Court with aggravated battery, a Level 1 felony; battery resulting in death of a person less than 14 years old, a Level 2 felony; neglect of a dependent, Level 5 felony; neglect of a dependent resulting in death, Level 1 felony.
Prewitt-Byers pled guilty in Monroe Circuit Court on March 31 to an amended charge of the Level 5 felony for neglect of a dependent.
She was sentenced to five years with credit for 315 actual days served in jail prior to disposition. The remainder was suspended to probation, according to Monroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kehr.
Police said the child was taken to IU Health Bloomington on April 18, 2018 with severe injuries that ultimately included massive hemorrhaging, abrasions, brain swelling, severe bleeding in her retina, optic nerve damage, bleeding at the base of her brain and blunt-trauma injury to her chest.
Hospital staff contacted police and the Indiana Department of Child Services.
The child died April 19, but remained on life support at Riley Hospital for Children so her organs could be donated.
State police and DCS investigated the case for six months, resulting in Prewitt-Byers’ arrest in October at a home in Nashville. Her address was listed as Highland Drive on Monroe County court documents at the time of her arrest, and currently listed at an address on Orchard Road.
In June of 2019, the prosecutor added two more charges: neglect of a dependent and neglect of a dependent resulting in death.
Prewitt-Byers’ stories were reportedly inconsistent and she insisted on taking a lie detector test, which she failed.
When questioned at the hospital, Prewitt-Byers initially blamed her boyfriend, of Monroe County, for the child’s injuries, according to a probable-cause affidavit. She and the baby had slept at his house before they arrived at the hospital that afternoon, the report said.
Detective Stacy Brown wrote that “Anna showed little emotion and was not crying at all” when he interviewed her about the child’s injuries. When she was told her daughter wouldn’t survive, “Anna began to cry and showed some emotion in the news,” he wrote.
Police searched the home of Michael Witham, the boyfriend, on the day the child was injured and reported finding 7 pounds of marijuana and $120,000 cash. They also found 155 grams of methamphetamine packaged for sale in an air vent, the report said.
Witham was charged with three drug offenses, and pled guilty in July 2021 to dealing methamphetamine and got sentenced to 10 years on house arrest. The two other charges were dropped.
Prewitt-Byers’ behavior after the initial police interview continued to alert Brown that something was wrong. Brown wrote that she started calling him with questions about how to get her belongings from her boyfriend’s house.
The day her daughter’s organs were to be harvested, she called Brown again to ask if Witham was still in jail, because she had planned to go to Little 500 events with the baby’s father and she wanted to make sure she didn’t run into Witham, the report said.
The child’s father and his family also accused Prewitt-Byers of opening a GoFundMe account to collect donations for her daughter’s funeral, which had already been paid for, the report said.
Prewitt-Byers demanded a polygraph examination and failed it nine days after the baby was admitted to the hospital, the report said.
Witham adamantly denied having anything to do with the baby’s injuries, as Prewitt-Byers had accused him more than once. He told police that he wasn’t “a monster” and that he wouldn’t bring attention to himself and his drug sales by hurting the child in the house, the report said.
After her arrest, Prewitt-Byers was held in jail nine months on $50,000 bond until Judge Diekhoff released her on her own recognizance in July 2019.
A month before she got out of jail, Prewitt-Byers wrote Diekhoff a letter asking that her bond be lowered. She had been hoping her tax refund check might help pay her way out, but it had been delayed.
Court records show that after securing her release from jail, Prewitt-Byers returned twice − in February and March of 2020 − for violating terms of her release. She was released in April of that year as the COVID-19 pandemic descended.
