Woman Not Guilty in Grandchild’s Kidnapping

A woman accused of snatching her 19-month-old granddaughter and drowning the child in the Snake River was found not guilty of a federal kidnapping charge Monday because of insanity.

Kelley Jean Lodmell still faces state kidnapping and first-degree murder charges in Idaho. Prosecutors say she took Acacia Bishop from her Salt Lake City home in May 2003, fleeing with the girl to Idaho Falls and jumping with the child into the Snake River.

Though Lodmell, then 39, climbed back out of the swift water near the Idaho Power Plant, the child’s body was never found.

Lodmell knew her actions were wrong, said U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball. But experts for both the defense and the prosecution agreed that she suffered from severe mental illness, most likely a type of schizophrenia.

“As a result, the defendant was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of her actions at the time of the kidnapping. As such, the defendant was not criminally responsible for her acts at the time of the offense,” Kimball ruled.

Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Utah, said federal prosecutors would ask the judge to commit Lodmell to confinement in a mental facility. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 11.

The prosecutor for the murder and kidnapping case in Idaho said he would wait to see what happened before moving forward with the state trial.

“Our main objective in this case is to ensure that the defendant is held in custody,” said Bonneville County prosecutor Dane Watkins Jr. “There is no statute of limitations on murder.”

If the federal judge agrees that Lodmell should be committed, she would be held until she could prove that she was not a danger to society, Rydalch said.