A 31-year-old Collier County woman will spend the next decade in prison after pleading no contest to aggravated manslaughter of a child in the drowning death of an infant left unattended in a bathtub.
Nicole Marie Laber entered her plea in Collier County Circuit Court today, following a Collier County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) investigation into the June 17, 2023, incident at her home on Everglades Boulevard. In addition to the 10-year prison term, she will serve 10 years of probation once released.
Sheriff Kevin Rambosk praised investigators’ work, saying, “Our detectives worked tirelessly to uncover the truth and bring justice for this innocent child.”
Laber initially told detectives that she had briefly left the infant alone in the house to retrieve her dog and another young child who had run outside. She claimed that when she returned, she found the infant face-down in the dog’s water bowl.
However, the CCSO investigation revealed a different story: Laber had strapped the infant into a booster seat and left the child unattended in a bathtub. The seat tipped over, trapping the infant under a few inches of water. Detectives determined that after the drowning, Laber cleaned the scene, dressed the child in a diaper, and fabricated the dog-bowl account to cover up what had happened.
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