Alysia Adams (Caddo County Jail) and Athena Brownfield (OSBI)
The legal danger is as precarious as possible for Oklahoma murder defendant Alysia Adams, 31, with prosecutors on Tuesday filing to seek the death penalty against her for allegedly murdering Athena Brownfield, a 4-year-old put in her care.
Caddo County prosecutors said her actions “knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person,” and that Athena’s death “was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”
The investigation and the search for the then-missing Athena started after a postal carrier found her then-5-year-old sister wandering outside the Adams’ house on Jan. 10, 2023, authorities previously said.
According to investigators, Adams had blamed her husband and co-defendant, Ivon Adams, 37, for beating Athena to death on Christmas Day 2022. But when medical examiners performed an autopsy on the 4-year-old’s body — found stuffed into a backpack in a shallow grave — they determined that she instead died of “acute pneumonia complicating malnutrition.” The updated charges allege that Alysia Adams was responsible for “putting Athena Brownfield in a closet and depriving the child of proper nutrition.”
Authorities said Athena’s weight was under the third percentile for her stature and age, according to Oklahoma City Fox affiliate KOKH. Together with the backpack, she weighed 23 pounds.
The state reduced the homicide count against Ivon Adams to second-degree murder. He is also charged with unlawful removal of a body and child neglect.
That brings us to Alysia Adams, who is now charged with first-degree murder as well as one count of obstructing an officer for allegedly providing false information to investigators when she told them that her husband had beaten Athena to death. She also faces one count of child neglect in connection to her treatment of Athena’s older sister.
Athena’s mother, Jasmin Adina Kay Brownfield, was arrested in May 2023 for allegedly abandoning her daughters with the couple.
