Police say that Jessica Lynn Howell, a 25-year-old O'Fallon mother, encouraged her boyfriend to rape her infant daughter -- prompting a brutal sexual assault that resulted in her four-month-old baby's death last year.
The woman was allegedly aware that her boyfriend, Jordan Lafayette Prince, 25, intended to assault her daughter, Ashlynn Lilith Peters, who did not survive the attack in December. Officials say they have text messages between the two that clearly demonstrate her responsibility in her child's death.
"These text messages [from the mother] encouraged the killer to engage in sexual conduct with the child," St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar tells Daily RFT. "We're very confident that she was fully aware of the gravity of what it was she was suggesting."
The formal complaint filed Monday -- on view below, with graphic detail about the assault -- says that months prior to her baby's death, Howell and Prince sent implicating texts. The charges reference "communications with Prince suggesting a willingness to allow him to engage in sexual activity with Ashlynn."
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Howell also allegedly knew that Prince had previously been found guilty of committing a sex offense against a minor.
"She still allowed the child to be in his presence and under his care," Lohmar says.
Howell is being held on a $1 million cash-only bond and will eventually face trial later this year or in early 2014.
A Facebook page that seems to be some sort of memorial fund for the baby girl includes a comment from what appears to be Jessica Howell's account back in January: