25-year-old mother, who let her 3-year-old son roam freely in the backseat during a trip before he stick his head out the window, strangling himself to death, was sentenced
Iowa – In a deeply tragic case out of Iowa, a 25-year-old mother, identified as B. Mosier, was sentenced to 50 years in prison after her negligence led to the horrifying death of her 3-year-old son, who strangled himself after sticking his head out of a car window while unrestrained in the backseat. Mosier was handed the maximum punishment by Judge J. Neary following her conviction for child endangerment resulting in death.
The heartbreaking case centers around the death of Mosier’s son, Jordan, who was found unresponsive on May 4, 2023. Initially, Mosier claimed the child had accidentally choked himself on the chest strap of his car seat. However, months later, after a thorough investigation, Mosier admitted that her son was not restrained at all and had been allowed to freely move around in the vehicle during the trip. “Mosier will serve a 50-year sentence and must pay $150,000 in restitution,” court records state. The prison term is the harshest possible penalty for the charge, and it underscores the catastrophic impact of her actions—or lack thereof.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety said that Mosier placed a 911 call at 7:55 a.m. on the day of the incident, reporting that her son was not breathing. Emergency responders rushed to her residence and transported the unconscious toddler to a hospital. Due to the severity of his condition, Jordan was then airlifted to children’s hospital in Nebraska, where he died the following day, on May 5.
A subsequent autopsy by the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the cause of death was strangulation. But inconsistencies in Mosier’s explanation of the incident quickly drew scrutiny. While she initially told officers that Jordan had been secured in his car seat and must have strangled himself on the chest strap, an investigation by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the sheriff’s office revealed a far darker truth. During a follow-up interview in September 2023, Mosier changed her story, admitting she had not strapped Jordan into his car seat for the short drive of eight miles . She confessed to finding her son “hanging” from the back driver’s side window after allowing him to roam free in the backseat during the ride.
Witnesses corroborated this, telling authorities they had seen the toddler’s “head or upper body” sticking out of the car window while Mosier was driving. Investigators also recovered photos and videos from Mosier’s phone that showed this was not a one-time mistake. Evidence indicated she routinely let Jordan ride unrestrained, which is a violation of Iowa’s child passenger safety laws requiring that all children under six be properly secured in an appropriate car seat.
Mosier’s blatant disregard for her son’s safety and her attempts to mislead investigators fueled outrage. “This was not an accident—it was a tragic, preventable death caused by repeated recklessness,” one official stated after the sentencing. Now, as she begins serving her decades-long sentence, Jordan’s family is left grieving a loss that, by all accounts, could and should have been prevented. Judge Neary made it clear that this was about more than one horrific mistake. It was about a pattern of carelessness and deception that cost a young child his life.
