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Authorities in Wyoming have accused a 35-year-old mother of fleeing to New Mexico with her 11-month-old son, where investigators claim she decided to murder the boy so she wouldn’t have to cede custody to his father.
Madeline Daly has been charged with first-degree murder and abandonment of a child resulting in death for allegedly kidnapping her son, Basil, in Wyoming before taking off to Silver City, New Mexico.
Police said Daly shot the infant to death on December 23, 2025, as New Mexico authorities were closing in on her hiding place in an RV park.
She was handcuffed and has been in police custody ever since.
A GoFundMe campaign started for the child’s father, Jake Stoner, said Basil’s killing capped a heart-wrenching, contentious yearlong ordeal over the child. According to the GoFundMe’s text, Stoner and Daly were in a relationship up until July 2024, when she “went on the run and tried to keep the location of where she was and where the baby was going to be born a secret.”
Basil was born on January 8, 2025. In the months leading up to the birth, Daly would allegedly “randomly send text messages to Mr. Stoner, telling him how he would never be a part of his child’s life.” She settled down in “the small town of Ten Sleep, Wyoming, to finish her pregnancy” and Stoner reconciled with her and “was able to be present for the birth of his son.”
But the good times did not last. Daly allegedly “refused to discuss the name of the child or even allow for the last name of Stoner to be placed on the birth certificate,” it is explained as part of the GoFundMe. She also allegedly “refused” to allow Stoner to be in his son’s life, and the matter ended up in family court.
In the fall, Stoner was awarded shared custody of Basil following a trial in Wyoming. Daly allegedly cooperated with the first few visits before absconding to New Mexico.
Stoner went back to the courts to pursue full custody, and she allegedly sent him a text message “calling him a deadbeat dad” and “telling him that she was already having his son start calling someone else daddy.” Daly was a no-show for a court-mandated handoff in October.
Stoner hired a private investigator, who learned she was staying with an individual in Worland, Wyoming, who was helping her hide the child.
After she was detained, Daly allegedly told police she knew she had broken the law but did it to keep her son safe and out of reach of Stoner and his family, according to a report from Cowboy State Daily.
She further made unsubstantiated claims her child would have been in danger if “she would have stepped out of that trailer” and that his father “never wanted anything to do with Basil, financially, physically, emotionally ever.”
If you suspect child abuse, please call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or visit ChildHelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential, and the hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
