Woman pleads guilty  to killing month old son 

LOS LUNAS—After only two days of testimony — described by the Valencia County sheriff as “gut wrenching” — an El Cerro Mission woman changed her plea to guilty to charges related to the 2021 death of her infant son. 

Kiria Lynn Milton, 31, spoke in a small voice through tears as she changed her plea before 13th Judicial District Court Judge Cindy Mercer last Thursday afternoon. Instead of continuing with the jury trial, which began Tuesday, Aug. 1, Milton pleaded guilty to the sole charge of intentional abuse of a child resulting in death, a first-degree felony. 

Milton will be sentenced at a later date. Her conviction exposes her to a sentence of life in prison. 

“I’m pleased with the outcome and very proud of the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office and district attorney’s office for putting a very solid case together,” said Valencia County Sheriff Denise Vigil. 

On Nov. 8, 2021, Milton called 911, telling a Valencia County dispatcher she didn’t want to hurt her children. When deputies arrived at the Clearview Drive home, Milton told them she was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t want to hurt her children — Waylon Padilla, 1 month old, and her 4-year-old son.  

Deputies contacted a caseworker with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, who took the two children to the sheriff’s office in Los Lunas until their father could get them. 

The children were released to their father and Milton was transported to the hospital for a mental evaluation. She was released from the facility on Nov. 11 and returned home. On Nov. 15, Milton called 911 a second time.  

When deputies arrived, they found Waylon unresponsive in his bassinet, with signs of blunt force trauma to his face and head, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. 

During the plea hearing, Assistant District Attorney Christopher Sturgess said the baby was suffocated and sustained blunt force trauma to the head. 

Jessica Martinez, chief deputy district attorney with the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said the request from Milton to change her plea came on the second day of testimony. 

“After lapel camera footage from the deputies first on the scene and photos of the baby as he was found were shown, during a recess, that’s when her attorney approached us,” Martinez said. 

During the plea hearing, Milton’s defense attorney, Marie Legrand Miller, said her client was “very adamant” about changing her plea and understood she was waiving her right to continue with a trial by jury. 

“I take this very seriously. This has never happened before in my career,” Legrand Miller said. “It is a close call, but I do concur with the plea agreement.” 

The chief deputy said the agreement Milton entered into will result in the highest sentence possible for the woman. 

“Had we gone to trial and been successful, it would have been the same,” Martinez said.  

The mandatory life sentence Milton is facing will make her eligible for parole after 30 years of incarceration, she said, and unable to earn “good time” for those three decades. 

Legrand Miller told Mercer she would be requesting mitigation of the sentence at the upcoming sentencing hearing.  

Because it’s a mandatory sentence, there is an allowance in New Mexico for a judge to mitigate — reduce — a sentence by up to and no more than two-thirds of the sentence, Martinez said.  

“The defense will present certain mitigating factors and hope the judge shows mercy,” she said. “If she is granted mitigation, she would be eligible for parole at around 20 years. Even if we had gone to trial and gotten this outcome, the defense would still be asking for mitigation.” 

At the time of Waylon’s death in 2021, a former spokesperson for CYFD implied Valencia County sheriff’s deputies should have made the decision to remove the infant from the home rather than relying on the department to do so.  

Sheriff Vigil pushed back, saying her agency didn’t have the authority to remove the child at the time of Milton’s first call on Nov. 8. 

The sheriff said there were no signs of abuse or a crime, and deputies reported the home was clean, with running water, food, electricity and separate beds for the two boys. A medical evaluation of the children that day found no signs of bruising. 

On the day Waylon was killed, Nov. 15, VCSO Sgt. David Zalink spoke with a CYFD caseworker who said a safety plan for the family wasn’t in place because they anticipated Milton being in the hospital for seven days, from Nov. 8 to 15. She returned home on Nov. 11.  

The sheriff said the caseworker instructed the children’s father to not let Milton be around them unless she started medication and made arrangements for counseling.  

“They did both. CYFD was to stay in contact; (the boys’ father) said they did not contact him in those seven days,” the sheriff said in 2021. 

In early 2022, the sheriff’s office administration began having weekly meetings with both state and county CYFD personnel, Vigil said, to better align the agencies policies and procedures. 

“Former secretary Barbara Vigil did reach out to me personally and apologize for what was said by their spokesperson,” the sheriff said. “We met weekly, then monthly, to make sure we were understanding each others role and collaborating in our most important goal of keeping children safe.”