ENGLEWOOD, Florida – A woman was charged Tuesday with helping her boyfriend smother his 6-year-old son and causing him to suffocate while the pair played video games on Christmas Eve.
Ashley Cole, 22, of Englewood, Florida, trapped the boy's feet behind her back while her 270-pound boyfriend pinned him down, according to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office.
Cole is accused on a charge of principal to aggravated manslaughter of a child. Her boyfriend and the boy's 31-year-old father, James "Rick" Dearman, was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child last week.
Dearman's son, James "Jimmy" Dearman, died at the couple's home in Englewood, around 70 miles south of Tampa.
The boy and his 7-year-old sister had been told to face the wall as a punishment for not going to bed, police said. After this "nose-to-wall" punishment did not work, Cole asked her boyfriend if they could "elevate the punishment ... to squishing," she told officers according to an affidavit.
Dearman weighs 270 pounds and Cole 210 pounds, according to police records.
"His son screamed that he couldn't breathe and begged to use the bathroom, eventually urinating on the couch and becoming unconscious," according to a statement from the sheriff's office released at the time of Dearman's arrest last week.
The pair then left the child on the couch and smoked a cigarette in the garage, according to the affidavit.
When they returned 10 minutes later and saw the child's lips were blue and he was not breathing, Cole ran back into the garage to pray while Dearman called 911. He attempted to perform CPR until paramedics arrived, according to the document.
The 7-year-old sibling was uninjured and taken into protective custody.
Cole and Dearman's bond was set at $1 million each. They are scheduled to be arraigned on February 5.