Mateo Harding, a man who told a mother not to be sorry for killing her infant son, was sentenced for coaching her on how to discard the baby.
Edwin Cosmo Trudeau, 20, is sentenced to 74 months in prison with 145 days of time served for acting as an accomplice after the fact.
Esperanza Rae Harding, 21, the mother, was sentenced in March to 32 years in prison for second-degree intentional murder. Both pleaded guilty.
Authorities in Hennepin County, Minnesota, say Harding texted Trudeau in frustration while at a hotel. She claimed her 7-month-old son Mateo had ruined her bath with his crying.
“He’s doing too much rn, I can’t f—ing sleep,” she wrote on February 28, 2024. “Im trying tho, Im about to do something bad, Please answer me, He going to no be here much longer.”
Instead of talking her down, Trudeau encouraged her homicidal impulse.
“Ok, that’s fine,” he wrote.
In a related story, when the mother texted that Mateo had died and expressed her regret, Trudeau responded, “Don’t be.”
Trudeau was her cheerleader, comparing them to bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde and declaring, “If you go down, I go down no matter what.” Harding told authorities that her boyfriend disliked the baby and wanted her to give it up for adoption.
“She stated that Trudeau wanted her to prove that he was her top priority,” the writers said.
According to authorities, Trudeau arrived to discover the baby had died in the bathroom. He attempted CPR, but rather than seeking assistance from first responders, he had sex with the mother before leaving the hotel room.
According to the affidavit, Trudeau told her to “keep her mouth shut.”
“If you go down, I go down no matter what,” he told me.
He told her to take the baby to the dumpster to make it appear as if she were throwing trash away.
“Mr. Trudeau attempted to help conceal a violent, heartbreaking act,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in a statement released Monday. “All of our thoughts are with Mateo and his family.
They should be getting ready to celebrate his second birthday, but instead they’re dealing with a lifetime of grief. Mr. Trudeau is being held responsible for his actions.
