A Greenwood woman pleaded guilty Friday morning to manslaughter in the July 2014 death of her 10-month-old son in the Ouachita Mountains.
Brooke Sueann Floyd, 22, entered her plea during a pretrial hearing in Paris. She was sentenced to 10 years of probation and fined $1,000.
Authorities have said they believe methamphetamine-induced hallucinations led Floyd to abandon her son, Harper Alexander Floyd, and her husband, Brian Floyd, 33, in the woods. She was not charged in her husband's death.
"It's just a tragic situation," Prosecuting Attorney Tom Tatum II said. "It was a very difficult case for myself and law enforcement and everyone involved. ... I think but for drug abuse by both [Brooke] Floyd and Brian Floyd, this wouldn't have happened."
The terms of Brooke Floyd's probation include her continuing mental-health counseling for one year.
"We thought we could beat the case, but you just don't know," said her attorney, Bill James of Little Rock. "It seemed like in the end, this was the best way for her to make sure that her life kept moving in a positive direction."
Floyd, who is living in an apartment with a roommate, had been out on bond after pleading innocent by reason of mental disease or defect.
Last month, a judge found Floyd competent to stand trial after a mental-evaluation report showed that she did not show symptoms of mental disease or defect at the time of the events.
A jury trial was set for Floyd on Sept. 21-22 in Yell County Circuit Court in Danville.
"You never know what's going to happen in a case like this," James said. "You never know what the jury is going to do.
"We've got the emotion of a dead child. Our client has done very, very well since this has happened. She's got herself clean and away from the problems that she had gotten into with her husband. She just wanted this opportunity to continue going forward in the way she was."
A scratched, bruised and barefoot Brooke Floyd was found in a ditch in the Ouachita National Forest by U.S. Forest Service personnel on July 25, 2014, according to an affidavit signed by Yell County sheriff's office Capt. John Foster Jr.
When authorities first located her, she told officers that she had left her son with her husband in the forest so she could seek help because people were chasing her family, according to the affidavit.
A ground and air search by the Arkansas State Police, the FBI, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and other law enforcement agencies for her husband and son followed.
Later, she said she and her husband had taken methamphetamine and been hallucinating and fighting, the affidavit stated. The truck the family was riding in had gotten stuck in the forest, and she decided to walk out for help.
The bodies of Harper and Brian Floyd were found about one-tenth of a mile apart four days later in a remote area of the Ouachita Mountains.
Preliminary autopsy results released after Harper's body was found indicated his cause of death was "exposure and abandonment."
Brian Floyd also died of exposure, Tatum said.
State Desk on 09/12/2015