Inset: Stacy Lee Snow (Yelp). Background: A “daycare room” at the California home where Stacy Snow ran Snow Angels Childcare and Preschool (Instagram/Yelp).
A California daycare owner and operator has been ordered to spend three years behind bars after a 16-month-old girl in the woman”s care got her head fatally wedged between a plastic cot — placed on top of a portable crib — and her crib’s railing.
“I am ashamed of my negligence,” said Stacy Lee Snow, 54, at her sentencing on Friday, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. “I will not ask for your forgiveness because I do not deserve it,” she told the victim’s family.
Snow, who pleaded guilty in April to involuntary manslaughter, ran an at-home daycare known as Snow Angels Childcare and Preschool in El Cajon while the victim was in her care, according to San Diego County prosecutors and officials.
A report by the medical examiner, which was obtained by the Union-Tribune and local CBS affiliate KFMB, said the victim was “fussier” than usual and put into the playpen around 10:30 a.m. on April 8, 2025, for a nap. A cover with a mesh center was placed over the crib to prevent the little girl from climbing out, along with a plastic cot, according to police and the ME’s report.
Snow was accused of not paying attention as the victim managed to get her head wedged between the plastic cot and a railing on the crib. Prosecutors said the girl’s mother specifically asked Snow not to let the child sleep at the daycare, and Snow was supposed to be checking on her every 15 minutes as required by state childcare licensing laws. The victim was also left in a bedroom with a closed door.
Snow found the girl unresponsive and removed her from the crib to perform CPR. Police and paramedics were called around 11:30 a.m. to the daycare, located at a residence in the 1500 block of Penasco Drive in unincorporated El Cajon.
“On arrival, medical personnel discovered [the victim] … on the living room floor,” a police press release says. “Paramedics immediately began CPR and transported the child to a local hospital, where tragically, the baby was pronounced deceased.”
The girl’s cause of death was listed as “accidental asphyxia,” per the Union-Tribune. The judge overseeing Snow’s case imposed the maximum sentence allowed and blasted Snow for “intentional and negligent choices” that led to “a tragedy that was absolutely and wholly avoidable.”
The victim’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Snow, according to online court records viewed by Law&Crime.
Snow was sentenced to three years in county jail, with her final six months of the sentence to be served on mandatory supervision. Her daycare has been closed and she no longer has a childcare license.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about this tragic incident and all the ways it could have been prevented had I not been so careless with my actions,” she told the court at her sentencing.
The victim’s mother said, “I still cannot bring myself to pack away her belongings because doing so feels like losing her all over again.”
The mom added, “I can’t shake the last time that I said goodbye.”
