Emergency responders couldn’t resuscitate Brittany Pilkington’s 3-month-old baby Noah, when he stopped breathing Tuesday. Just like they couldn’t save her 4-year-old son Gavin when he died in April. Or her 3-month-old son Niall, when he died last summer.
Authorities in Bellefontaine, Ohio, saw a pattern and had some questions for Pilkington. She gave them a macabre confession, CNN affiliate WBNS reported. She was then arrested on murder charges, a police statement said.
Pilkington had called 911 at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, saying Noah couldn’t breathe.
“How is his color?” the operator asked Pilkington. “I imagine he’s bluish by now,” Pilkington answered.
When police questioned her, at first, the 23-year-old mother said she believed that genetics were behind the deaths of all three boys, WBNS reported.
Authorities in the town about 25 miles northwest of Columbus may have previously accepted the death-by-natural-causes theory when the first two boys died. This time they weren’t buying it.
When prosecutors questioned her, Pilkington told them that she had suffocated all three boys with a blanket.
Police Chief Brandon Standley regretted not having heard Pilkington’s confession sooner.
“You’re all waiting for that last thing to come forward that says that this is what caused the death of child number one and child number two,” he said. “Unfortunately, we did not get that until today.”
She may have done it out of jealousy, police said, because she felt her husband favored the boys over her and their daughter.
Both the Noah and the daughter had been in protective custody and recently returned home.
Pilkington’s father, Ed Cummins, told WBNS that he was stunned. “I’m blown away, I don’t know what to think,” he said. He’d like to ask her why his grandsons died.
Pilkington is reportedly expected to appear in court on Wednesday.