Aggravated Sentence For Minnesota Woman Who Drowned Her Son

Minneapolis, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Minnesota woman has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for the murder of her infant son.

According to court records, Minneapolis police responded to a hospital last March regarding a missing child. When they arrived, they located 21-year-old Esperanza Rae Harding, who claimed that her child had died of natural causes in the hospital a few days earlier.

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The criminal complaint in the case indicates the hospital had no record of the child being admitted to the hospital and the Medical Examiner's Office had no record of the victim. Due to the suspicious nature of the woman's claim, the court document says the officers interviewed Harding and she eventually admitted drowning the baby in a bathtub at a hotel in Bloomington on February 28, 2024.

The court document says Harding told investigators that she later wrapped up the infant's body, placed it in a backpack, and threw it into a trash dumpster. The evidence listed in the complaint included a photo taken by Harding of the infant floating face down in the fall bathtub that was recovered from her cell phone.

In December, Harding, who has no permanent address, entered into a plea agreement and admitted to a charge of second-degree intentional murder. The judge in the case indicated that the decision to impose a sentence higher than recommended by state sentencing guidelines was due to the particular vulnerability of the victim.

A news release issued by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office says that Harding's boyfriend, 19-year-old Edwin Trudeau, entered a guilty plea to a charge of aiding an offender/accomplice after the fact. The Minnetonka man is scheduled to be sentenced in early May.

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