Mother who murdered her baby son said killing was ‘worth it’ to stop her ex sharing custody of the infant

A New Mexico mother admitted to murdering her 11-month-old son because she didn’t want to share custody of him with the baby’s father. 

Madeline Veronique Daly, 36, pleaded guilty this week to killing her infant son Basil Daly in December 2025, weeks after kidnapping him from his father’s home in Wyoming when a court had granted him emergency custody. 

She took the infant to a rural area in Grant City, New Mexico, and tried to hide in an RV in a trailer park after the boy’s father reported Basil missing and authorities searched for her on a warrant for kidnapping. 

Daly said she knew law enforcement was closing in on her, so she fatally shot Basil with a single gunshot to the face, police said in her affidavit. 

The mother then said it was ‘worth it’ to murder her own son to stop her ex or his family having custody of him, Detective Lt. Jason Jordan of the Grant County Sheriff’s Office wrote in her affidavit. 

‘Even if the rest of life is worthless she would do it again just so to make sure that the (family) didn’t touch him,’ Jordan said in the affidavit. 

‘When asked what went through her mind when she saw law enforcement walking up, she replied, ‘(the father) can’t get Basil,’ the affidavit added. 

Daly tried to turn the gun on herself after murdering her baby, but officers were able to subdue her before she could do so, police said.

The 36-year-old was arrested at the scene and has been held without bail, before she took a plea deal this week on first-degree murder charges.

Daly now faces a life sentence following her guilty plea, and she will be formally sentenced at a later date. 

She lost custody of her son in November 2025 as a judge granted Basil’s father emergency custody, and she kidnapped the infant a short time later.

The boy’s father reported Basil missing on November 19, and said he had not seen his son for several weeks as Daly was resisting handing him over.

As cops sought Daly for several weeks, she was tracked to New Mexico after applying for a job in the state, and her warrant for kidnapping charges in Wyoming popped up during a background check.

According to her affidavit, Daly told deputies when she was arrested that she knew she broke the law by taking Basil, but believed she was keeping her son ‘safe’ from her former partner and his family.

She said that she decided to kidnap her son after losing custody of him, and she ‘was not going to allow her son to go back and forth from Nebraska to Wyoming twice a month’, police said. 

Police surrounded her trailer home in an unincorporated area near Silver City, New Mexico, and Daly later told cops that she ‘saw the sheriffs and knew my time was up.’

She told them that her ex ‘can’t get Basil’, and so she ‘said, F*** it, it’s worth a shot’, Jordan wrote in her affidavit. 

Deputies said they then heard a single gunshot from inside her RV, and paramedics found Basil inside with a ‘gunshot wound to the face.’ 

After the murder, she then told investigators that it was ‘worth it’ so long as the boy’s father wouldn’t have him.

She also alleged that Basil ‘would have been in danger and molested’ if he stayed with her former partner. 

She said the boy’s father ‘never wanted anything to do’ with their son, ‘financially, physically, emotionally ever.’