An Illinois woman has admitted to the 2021 suffocation of her 7-year-old son after her legal attempts to exclude key evidence against her were unsuccessful.
Sarah Safranek, aged 38, received a 35-year prison sentence, as reported by WIFR. Judge Anthony Peska decreed that she must serve the full duration of the sentence, followed by three years of mandatory supervised release.
Initially, Safranek had admitted guilt for the murder of Nathaniel Burton in March 2024 but later retracted her plea.
The prosecution revealed that Safranek suffocated Burton on February 17, 2021. Although he was transported to a hospital while still alive, he succumbed to his injuries — including a ruptured liver — later that day, according to court records.
These court documents detail the defense’s efforts to prevent certain witness testimonies and to block evidence of Safranek’s internet searches from being presented. On the day of his death, she researched how long child death investigations typically last and sought information on child abuse investigations.
In late 2020, her search history included inquiries on how to kill using a voodoo doll and purchasing arsenic online. On November 1, 2020, she searched for terms relating to parental obsession with thoughts of filicide, alongside other related queries. Similar searches were conducted throughout the summer.
Then there was witness testimony, including from Nathaniel’s paternal grandmother and his 18-year-old half sister, both of whom said that Nathaniel told them of repeated attempts by his mother to kill him.
“Mama is going to kill me,” the grandmother said, quoting the boy. “Mama would take the pillow and hold it,” saying he told her couldn’t breathe whenever she did it. In another instance, Nathaniel told his grandmother that his other tried to drown him in the bath. Safranek denied what the boy said and told the grandmother he was lying.
The grandmother said she tried contacting child services, but never heard back from them.
The documents — an appeals court ruling from earlier this summer — also detail videos of some of Nathaniel’s statements which were ultimately excluded from evidence that could be shown to a jury.
