Background: The Grant County Detention Center in Silver City, New Mexico (Google Maps). Inset left: Madaline Daly (Grant County Sheriff”s Office). Inset right: Basil Daly (GoFundMe).
A tragic case has unfolded involving a mother accused of fleeing to New Mexico and fatally shooting her 11-month-old son to prevent the child’s father from gaining custody.
Madaline Daly, 35, faces charges of first-degree murder and abandoning a child resulting in death, as indicated by Grant County jail records accessed by Law&Crime. Daly was apprehended on December 23 and remains in custody.
A GoFundMe campaign, established on behalf of—and seemingly endorsed by—the child’s father, Jake Stoner, outlines the distressing timeline leading to Basil Daly’s death. According to the fundraiser, Stoner and Daly had been together until July 2024, at which point Daly allegedly disappeared, keeping her whereabouts and the impending birth of their child concealed.
In the months leading up to the birth of Basil on January 8, 2025, Daly is said to have sent sporadic messages to Stoner, asserting that he would never be a part of his child’s life. She reportedly settled in Ten Sleep, Wyoming, to complete her pregnancy. Despite the turmoil, Stoner managed to reconnect with Daly, allowing him to be present for Basil’s birth.
However, the parents’ relationship soon deteriorated. Daly allegedly refused to discuss their son’s name or include Stoner’s surname on the birth certificate, preventing Stoner from being involved in his son’s life. Consequently, Stoner sought legal intervention, as noted by Cowboy State Daily.
Following a court trial in Washakie County, Wyoming, last fall, Stoner was awarded shared custody of Basil. He was in the process of arranging a schedule to spend approximately half of the time with his son, and their initial visits were reportedly positive, according to the fundraiser.
But again, Daly was reportedly declining to let her son see his father. Stoner appealed to the courts, and he allegedly received a text message from his former girlfriend “calling him a deadbeat dad, telling him that she was already having his son start calling someone else daddy, and telling him, ‘awww you snitched.’”
When Daly failed to appear for a scheduled court hearing concerning visitation in October, Stoner was given temporary emergency custody, the newspaper reported. The father would never see Basil again.
The suspect is believed to have fled — first west to Worland, Wyoming, and then south through Colorado into New Mexico. Stoner had hired a private investigator by this point to help find his son. A warrant was placed for Daly’s arrest, but, according to the fundraiser, because authorities cited no evidence of “immediate, present danger to the child,” an Amber Alert was not issued.
Someone contacted law enforcement and told them Daly was staying in an RV park near Silver City, New Mexico, per Cowboy State Daily. Deputies with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office responded, and the suspect allegedly hid with her son in an RV near the bunkhouse where she had been living.
As deputies tried to negotiate with the mother, she is said to have taken a 9 mm gun, pointed it at her son’s face, and fired. Law enforcement subsequently detained her.
Daly was adamant about keeping her son away from Stoner and his family, according to court documents obtained by the Wyoming-based newspaper. She alleged that Basil would have been in danger if “she would have stepped out of that trailer” and that Stoner “never wanted anything to do with Basil, financially, physically, emotionally ever.”
She allegedly said she ran into the RV with her son because she “knew her time was up.”
Daly has reportedly been ordered to be held in custody as her case moves through the court system. Mark Abramson with the Grant County District Attorney’s Office warned that the risk of her fleeing was too high given that she had already done it.
“A mother absconded with her child from Wyoming, traveled around — we’re not sure where — but ended up here being confronted by law enforcement and chose to murder her child, her own child, with a 9 mm gun to the face,” he said.
Stoner, for his part, is lobbying for Amber Alerts to require “less stringent standards.”
“Jake believes that if the laws are changed to allow for an Amber Alert to be issued with less stringent standards, his son would be alive and safe,” the GoFundMe states.
