Inset: Billie Mosier (Iowa Department of Public Safety). Background, the area in Battle Creek, Iowa, where Mosier lived with her son (Google Maps).
A 25-year-old woman in Iowa will spend decades behind bars after a judge handed down the maximum sentence for her role in the strangulation death of her 3-year-old son after she lied to authorities, telling investigators the boy was choked to death by the chest strap on his car seat — a device she rarely even used.
Plymouth County District Judge Jeffrey A. Neary on Friday ordered Billie Mosier to serve a sentence of 50 years in a state correctional facility for the 2023 slaying of young Jordan Reed, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
The half-century sentence was the harshest punishment available for Mosier, who last month was convicted on one count of child endangerment resulting in death following a bench trial before Neary. In addition to the decades of detention, Mosier is also required to pay $150,000 in restitution.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the investigation into Mosier began when she called 911 at about 7:55 a.m. on May 4, 2023, and reported finding her son unconscious and not breathing at their residence in the 500 block of Maple Street in Battle Creek, Iowa, which is about 135 miles west of Des Moines.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders from Battle Creek Community Ambulance Services said they found Jordan unresponsive and immediately transported him to Horn Memorial Hospital in nearby Ida Grove. Due to the severity of his condition, the 3-year-old was later transported to Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. He succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead on May 5.
According to a news release from the Iowa Department of Public Safety, an investigation conducted by the Ida County Sheriff’s Office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), and the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner resulted in Mosier being arrested several months later and charged in connection with Jordan’s death.
A copy of the criminal complaint obtained by Sioux City ABC affiliate KCAU provided additional details about the evidence that led to the charges against Mosier.
Per the report, in an interview with police on the day of the 911 call, Mosier said that she had been traveling from Ida Grove to Battle Creek with her son, a trip of about eight miles. She claimed that when she got to her destination, Jordan was strapped in his car seat with his head slumped down and she believed the toddler was asleep. She later realized that her son was not breathing, telling police she believed he “strangled himself on the chest strap” of his car seat.
A subsequent autopsy performed by the state medical examiner’s office determined that Jordan’s cause of death was indeed strangulation, but investigators said that the boy’s injuries did not align with Mosier’s story about the car seat chest strap inadvertently being responsible for his death
During a follow-up interview in September 2023, authorities said Mosier admitted that her son was not actually in his car seat during the trip to Battle Creek.
She confessed that she’d left him in the vehicle unsecured during the trip and then found him “hanging” from the rear driver’s side window of the vehicle, the Sioux City Journal reported. Several witnesses also told police they saw the toddler’s “head or upper body” sticking out of the window while Mosier was driving that day.
Additional witness statements as well as photographs and videos recovered from Mosier’s phone reportedly showed that she regularly let Jordan roam freely throughout the car while she was driving instead of securing him in a child car seat, as required under Iowa state law for all kids under age 6.
