The death of 11-month-old Basil followed weeks in which authorities sought the child after his mother failed to surrender him.
SILVER CITY, N.M. — By the time a New Mexico judge sentenced Madeline Daly to life in prison, the custody order at the center of her dispute with her son’s father had long since been overtaken by a murder case stretching from Wyoming to a rural RV in southwestern New Mexico.
Daly pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in August and was sentenced Sept. 28 for killing her 11-month-old son, Basil. She must serve at least 30 years before she can be considered for parole. The sentence followed a chain of events that began not with a criminal prosecution in New Mexico but with a Wyoming family-court dispute over who would have physical custody of the child. Authorities said Daly did not comply when a judge awarded emergency custody to Basil’s father, setting off a search that lasted weeks and eventually brought deputies to the property where the child died.
The custody litigation had been unfolding during Basil’s first year of life. His father, Jake Stoner, sought greater access to the boy, according to court reporting and accounts reviewed by news organizations. Daly failed to appear at a scheduled Wyoming hearing on Oct. 21, 2025. The judge granted Stoner temporary emergency custody, and law enforcement later said Daly did not turn Basil over. Stoner reported his son missing in November. The Washakie County Sheriff’s Office obtained a felony warrant for Daly on a custody-interference allegation and said the warrant allowed nationwide extradition if she was found.
The case presented authorities with a difficult distinction during the early search. Basil was a missing infant whose mother was accused of violating a court order, but the sheriff’s office did not issue an Amber Alert. Officials said at the time that the information available to them did not establish the immediate danger required for such an alert. The absence of an Amber Alert did not end the search. The sheriff’s office continued pursuing leads and seeking Daly, whose last known Wyoming connections included the Worland and Ten Sleep areas.
Daly eventually traveled hundreds of miles south with Basil. Authorities later determined that she had reached Grant County in southwestern New Mexico. She had prior experience doing outdoor work in the region and sought employment after arriving, according to records described by the Silver City Daily Press. She was staying around the Gila Hot Springs and Mimbres area, a sparsely populated region east of Silver City. The ordinary process of looking for work ultimately provided investigators with the lead they had been missing.
A prospective employer performed a background check and discovered the Wyoming warrant. The information was reported to authorities, and Grant County sheriff’s deputies went to a rural property along Highway 15 on Dec. 23. Prosecutors said Daly moved into a motorized RV with her son when officers arrived. Deputies surrounded the RV and worked to secure a search warrant while trying to resolve the encounter. The setting had changed dramatically from a family-court disagreement in Wyoming to an armed law-enforcement operation in New Mexico.
Deputies then heard a gunshot from inside the RV. They entered and found Basil critically wounded from a shot fired with a 9 mm handgun, according to prosecutors and sheriff’s officials. Officers detained Daly after a struggle and tried to get Basil to an ambulance. He died from the injury. The Sixth Judicial District Attorney’s Office later charged Daly with first-degree murder and intentional child abuse resulting in death. Court reporting said officers also prevented Daly from using the firearm against herself during the encounter.
Investigative records later described statements Daly made about why she had resisted surrendering Basil. She claimed that she believed the boy would be harmed if he went to his father or his father’s relatives. Those claims reflected Daly’s stated view and were not judicial findings that the father or his family had abused Basil. The custody order went the other way: a Wyoming judge had directed that the child be placed with his father on an emergency basis. Reporting on the criminal case has not established that Daly’s accusations of danger were substantiated.
New Mexico prosecutors initially prepared to try both charges. A judge ordered Daly detained without bond in January, citing the gravity of the case and safety concerns. Hearings continued through the year as lawyers prepared for trial. The case ended short of a jury proceeding when Daly appeared in Sixth Judicial District Court on Aug. 24 and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Prosecutors dismissed the separate child abuse count under the plea agreement. Judge Tom Stewart accepted the agreement but delayed sentencing to review the case further.
That delay mattered because the guilty plea resolved responsibility for the murder but did not immediately produce the final judgment. Prosecutors said Daly faced a life sentence. New Mexico’s sentencing structure requires a person in her position to serve decades before release can even be considered. At the later hearing, Stewart imposed life imprisonment and told Daly that a parole board could consider release after she had served 30 years. Consideration is not a promise of release, and the board would have to make a separate decision if and when Daly becomes eligible.
The Sept. 28 hearing also returned attention to Basil as a child rather than simply the subject of custody and criminal records. Daly spoke about his personality and his enjoyment of the outdoors. She apologized to Stoner and acknowledged that what she had done was indefensible. Prosecutor Joseph Silva submitted a letter from Stoner for the judge’s consideration, though the letter was not read publicly. Stewart said he had considered whether Daly should ever receive an opportunity for parole but concluded that the 30-year minimum was already an exceptionally long period.
District Attorney Norman Wheeler said after the hearing that the killing had affected not only the family but also law enforcement officers, emergency workers and the wider Grant County community. Those responders had arrived expecting to execute or assist with a warrant connected to a missing-child and custody case. Instead, they became witnesses to and responders in a child’s killing. That shift helps explain why the New Mexico prosecution focused not on the original custody violation but on the far more serious conduct that occurred after deputies located Daly.
Wyoming’s legal interest in the earlier events has not necessarily disappeared. The original warrant concerned Daly’s alleged removal or retention of Basil contrary to the custody order. Reporting around the plea and sentencing said she could still face proceedings there after her New Mexico case. No final disposition of that separate Wyoming matter was identified in the records reviewed for this article. Any prosecution there would be distinct from the first-degree murder conviction already entered in New Mexico.
The sequence now ends, for the moment, with two very different court orders. The first was the Wyoming order directing that Basil be turned over to his father. The second was the New Mexico judgment sending Daly to prison for life after she admitted murdering the child rather than surrendering him. Basil died Dec. 23, 2025, at 11 months old. Daly remains under the New Mexico life sentence, and she cannot be considered for parole until she has served at least 30 years.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.