ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY, Mo. – A former daycare worker accused of killing a 3-year-old child with autism is granted a reduced bond on Monday.

Tiffany Hedrick, 40, could soon be released from jail after being held without bond for more than a month on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Conrad Ashcraft.

A St. Francois County judge on Monday set Hedrick’s bond at a $200,000 surety bond. Court filings show she has already arranged to have a GPS monitor installed, one of several conditions of her potential release.

If she posts bond, Hedrick will be under house arrest with GPS monitoring. She will be allowed to leave between 7 a.m.-5 p.m. for work, court appearances or meetings with her attorney. She is also prohibited from having unsupervised contact with children under the age of 13.

Hedrick worked at Poppy’s Playhouse 2 in Park Hills, where she was accused of leaving the non-verbal Conrad Ashcraft under a weighted blanket, leading to his death, investigators said.

Conrad died by asphyxiation. 

Conrad’s mother, Tara Williams, said she provided the prosecutor a written statement to read at Monday’s bond reduction hearing. Williams gave FOX 2 permission to share that statement here:

“Conrad’s purple smooshed face will forever be burned into my mind and forever haunt me no matter where I go in my sleep or while I’m awake. The memories of seeing his small lifeless body lying there face down. How being in the house that he grew up in from the time he was a newborn until now makes me so uncomfortable that makes my skin crawl. How the anxiety and panic and that flash of his face comes the minute I try to lay down.

Having to go through toys and clothes that I want to cling to because it’s the last thing I have of him. The triggers of just hearing somebody breath, their heartbeat or their arm laying on me instantly bring on panic and anxiety attack. My evenings what used to be filled with therapies 3x a week and accomplishments of him reaching milestones, are now empty. My other boys, 10 and 6, will never get to spend another day with their little brother. They have to deal with going to school and hear their friends talk about what is going on and not being able to comprehend why their brother is not here with us. This will follow them every single day of their life along with mine.

We will never get to celebrate his accomplishments of possibly speaking and we never will as she took what voice he could have had. We will never get to see how far he could have come due to the actions of Tiffany and this daycare who was supposed to be a safe place. My family will never be the same. No holiday or birthday will ever be the same.

If my life has to be in such turmoil due to her actions, I feel that she should feel the same. I had to wait 3 months for her to be arrested in those 3 months she was able to enjoy memorial day, country days, and 4th of July with her children and her family that is whole. Where my boys and I had to celebrate those holidays and his 4th birthday without Conrad.

I do not believe she should get bond or even a reduction as she made a choice and if he could have talked, he might have still been with us, but she chose for him.”

Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum said the bond reduction made sense, claiming Hedrick is not a danger to anyone and she is not a flight risk.

“One of the things they have to consider is the strength of the case,” Rosenblum said. “We don’t find the strength of the case very powerful.”

Rosenblum added that the discovery process could take up to a year. 

“At some point down the road, we’ll set it for trial and put the state to its burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and we feel very confident in the defense,” he said.

Family members of the boy expressed outrage over the court’s decision. 

“I am utterly infuriated and left searching for words. How can the legal system so fundamentally fail a child when its sole purpose is to prevail justice?” Conrad’s cousin Danielle Love said in a statement.

As of Monday, Poppy’s Playhouse 2 appeared to be closed and its signs removed. A special prosecutor handling the case did not respond to a request for comment.

“It’s like a punch-in-the-gut feeling to know that she could be out,” the boy’s aunt, Lacey Hardie said.