Victoria Moreno was repeatedly evaluated for trial fitness before pleading guilty to the 2022 murder of her 3-year-old nephew.
CHICAGO, Ill. — Years of disputes and evaluations over Victoria Moreno’s mental fitness ended shortly before the 38-year-old woman pleaded guilty to murdering her 3-year-old nephew and received a 40-year prison sentence for his 2022 death at Navy Pier.
The resolution linked two issues that had shaped the case without being legally identical: whether Moreno was competent to face prosecution and whether she was criminally responsible for Josiah Brown’s death. Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Byrne accepted the resolution and found Moreno guilty but mentally ill, according to court reporting. Moreno’s lawyers had said she was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder. Courts nevertheless determined that, with medication, she was able to understand the criminal proceedings and participate in her defense. Her guilty plea then resolved the separate question of guilt without the murder case going before a jury.
Moreno’s mental condition had been raised from the earliest days of the prosecution. When she was initially held after Josiah was pulled from Lake Michigan in September 2022, defense lawyers pointed to mental-health concerns as they argued her case. Prosecutors, meanwhile, described a sequence of actions they said was deliberate: taking Josiah from the family home without permission, driving him into Chicago, bringing him to Navy Pier and pushing him from the pier. The defense later disputed the prosecution’s assertion that the fall was intentional, arguing before the guilty plea that her position near the child did not necessarily rule out an accident.
The competency issue continued long after the murder charge was filed. In February 2024, a judge found Moreno fit to stand trial if she remained on medication. That decision did not end the examination of her condition. Her attorneys later sought and received permission to have another expert evaluate her. Court records reported by local media in May 2024 again described her as fit while medicated, but the defense continued pursuing its own psychiatric assessment. By September 2026, nearly four years after Josiah’s death, Moreno had again been found mentally fit to proceed. Soon afterward, instead of moving into a jury trial, she pleaded guilty to murder.
The prosecution itself began as a different case because Josiah initially survived. On Sept. 19, 2022, emergency divers pulled the 3-year-old from Lake Michigan after he had been submerged for roughly half an hour. He was hospitalized in critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest. Authorities charged Moreno with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery to a child. Josiah remained hospitalized for six days before dying Sept. 25. The medical examiner determined that he died from complications of drowning and ruled the death a homicide. Prosecutors then upgraded the case to murder, changing the stakes of proceedings that would continue for years.
According to prosecutors’ account, Josiah had been at his family’s Des Plaines home on the morning he was taken to Chicago. Moreno obtained keys to the family vehicle and left with him without the knowledge or permission of relatives, authorities said. Family members had reason to become concerned quickly. Prosecutors said Moreno was not supposed to be driving, in part because of medication she was taking, and that she had taken children from the home to Navy Pier without permission about a week earlier. During that earlier outing, an older child contacted relatives and told them where the group was.
Authorities said the September 2022 trip included a stop at the Shedd Aquarium before Moreno went to Navy Pier. Prosecutors said she could not enter the aquarium because of an issue paying admission with cash. At Navy Pier, she bought food for Josiah before going with him toward the lakefront. Surveillance cameras became a major source of evidence. Prosecutors said the video showed the boy moving beneath chains near the edge of the pier and Moreno crossing the barrier as well. They said the recording then showed her pushing Josiah into Lake Michigan. Her defense disputed the intentional-push theory before the case was resolved.
What happened after the child entered the water also figured prominently in prosecutors’ presentation. Witnesses noticed Josiah in the lake and summoned help. People at the pier obtained a life ring, while emergency crews responded and Chicago Fire Department divers entered the water. Prosecutors said Moreno did not attempt to rescue the child or call for assistance. Josiah eventually sank below the surface before divers recovered him. One witness described seeing the boy disappear beneath the water. The accounts were disturbing, but they also provided investigators with observations independent of the surveillance footage.
Police also examined Moreno’s statements at the scene. Prosecutors said she initially told officers in a way that suggested she was simply a witness and did not know the child. She later acknowledged that Josiah was her nephew. She also told investigators that she had brought him to Navy Pier to go on the rides. Those statements became part of a broader evidentiary record that included video, witnesses, the rescue response and the circumstances of the trip from Des Plaines. Because Moreno eventually entered a guilty plea, prosecutors did not have to present that material to a jury and prove the case through a full trial.
The later finding of guilty but mentally ill is distinct from the earlier competency determinations. Competency concerns a defendant’s present ability to understand court proceedings and assist counsel. It does not by itself determine whether the defendant committed an offense or what mental state existed at the time. Moreno’s competency findings allowed the prosecution to move forward while she was medicated. The ultimate guilty plea and Byrne’s finding resolved the criminal charge itself. The 40-year term places Moreno in the Illinois Department of Corrections despite the court’s recognition of mental illness.
The legal focus on Moreno’s condition did not change the medical finding in Josiah’s death. The Cook County medical examiner determined that the boy died from drowning complications and classified the death as a homicide. Nor did the repeated competency litigation change the prosecution’s central factual allegation that Moreno caused him to enter the lake. What it changed was the pace and procedural course of the case. Each evaluation affected whether the prosecution could move toward trial, and defense attorneys continued seeking expert review even after an earlier finding that she could proceed while receiving medication.
The plea brought that procedural history to an abrupt conclusion. A trial would have required jurors to assess the state’s evidence and the defense’s challenge to the claim of an intentional push. Instead, Moreno admitted guilt to first-degree murder and received the lengthy prison term. The finding of guilty but mentally ill preserved the court record of her diagnosed conditions while leaving the murder conviction and sentence in place. Nearly four years after Josiah’s death, the recurring question was no longer whether Moreno was fit to be tried, but how the case would be resolved once the court determined she was able to proceed.
Moreno is now committed to serve the 40-year sentence in state prison. The plea means there will be no murder trial examining the evidence before a jury, and the competency litigation that repeatedly delayed the case no longer stands between prosecutors and a final judgment. For Josiah’s family, the resolution comes four years after the 3-year-old was taken from his Des Plaines home to Chicago, pulled from Lake Michigan in critical condition and died after six days in the hospital.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.