A tragic incident in Maryland has led to a mother facing murder charges after authorities reported her 5-week-old daughter died following a night of heavy drinking with friends.

Destiny Faith Chiveral, aged 24, is accused of first-degree and second-degree murder, along with charges of child abuse resulting in the death of a child under 13 and causing severe bodily harm. This follows the discovery of her infant daughter, lifeless, at a home in Rising Sun on December 4. Maryland State Police confirmed the baby’s death at the location, with the homicide unit spearheading the ongoing investigation. Court documents, as reported by the Cecil Whig, revealed that what began as a social gathering among friends took a devastating turn in a matter of hours.

The Cecil Whig further detailed from court records that Chiveral, who lived with her grandmother in Charleston, Maryland, attended a “girls night out” at another residence in Rising Sun on the evening of December 3. The following morning, at approximately 9 a.m., Chiveral discovered her daughter, K.C., unresponsive and promptly called for emergency services.

Responding paramedics found K.C. to be “cold, lifeless,” with early signs of rigor mortis, indicating she had been deceased for some time, as they were unable to move her limbs. Officially, the infant was declared dead at 9:17 a.m.

Chiveral explained to law enforcement that her daughter might have suffocated after getting trapped between a couch cushion and the back of the sofa. However, an autopsy revealed the cause of death to be blunt force trauma, with significant bleeding at the base of the brain and other injuries.

Investigators seized Chiveral’s phone, uncovering a digital trail of the events leading to the tragedy. Snapchat videos from Chiveral’s account, recorded between late December 3 and early December 4, showed her becoming visibly intoxicated while in the company of K.C. in the Rising Sun home. The infant’s cries are audible in several clips, according to police findings.

In one video, Chiveral reportedly wrangled with a baby gate while drunk and vaping, police said. She can reportedly be heard saying, “I’m too (expletive) drunk for that. I’m just going to (expletive) climb over the (expletive) (expletive).”

In another video, while Chiveral was in the bathroom, she said, “I don’t know if you hear the (expletive) baby trippin’ in the background” as the baby cried in the background.

Police said the last video she sent depicted her with the hiccups, saying, per the documents, “She’s (expletive) tri-(hiccup) trippin’… But aside that, like, she’s the chillest baby until she’s (hiccup) mad about something like (yawns) this is the baddest that she’s been in a wh-(hiccup) while and if I can tell you the tea that I know, you’d be like, but honestly I love you but don’t trust you enough to tell you…”

A different video taken at 1:34 a.m. showed the baby alive. Police wrote that a framed picture on the wall that was straight in the video was observed to be “significantly ajar.”

Chiveral told police that she only had one drink and “one Smirnoff shot.” Police found a “nearly empty bottle of vodka” in the residence that a witness said belonged to her. The witness told police that the bottle was almost full when she put it in the freezer days earlier.

Police interviewed Chiveral a second time, after the autopsy was conducted on her daughter, and informed her that K.C.’s death was ruled a homicide. She was told about the injuries found on her daughter, and said, “I swear I never did anything to her… I would never do that,” according to court documents.

As she attempted to come up with a possible explanation for her daughter’s injuries, Chiveral claimed that she would sleepwalk when she drank. She also suggested that she could have kicked the baby while they both slept on the couch together. Police said Chiveral also told them that her older child, a toddler, was “rough” with the baby, but the toddler was at their father’s house that night.

Police said that during the second interview, Chiveral said, “Nothing I say is going to fix this, is it? No matter what, I’m going to be blamed for her death, ain’t I?”

Chiveral was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, child abuse resulting in the death of a child under 13 years old, and child abuse resulting in severe bodily injury. She is in custody at the Cecil County Detention Center, where she is being held without bond. Her next court date is scheduled for Jan. 9, 2026.