Law&Crime Sidebar - Georgia Mom Killed Baby with Blow Dryer: Indictment

Episode Date: February 8, 2025

A Georgia grand jury recently indicted Morgan Alyson Creel after the death of her infant son. Creel told authorities she was trying to warm up the baby with a hair dryer, but accidentally fell asleep with it still turned on next to the child. Prosecutors say Creel was high at the time. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke with Dave Aronberg, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, about the tragic case.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you or a loved one have suffered physical or mental health issues due to video games, visit https://vgclaims.com/Sidebar to answer less than 10 questions and check your eligibility to file a claim!HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A Georgia mom is charged with second-degree murder after her eight-month-old son died from burns caused by a hairdryer. That's what authorities are alleging right now. And they say, this was no accident. We have got the full incident report, and it is worse than you think. We're going to break it all down right now with former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aaronberg. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. So I'm not going to lie to you. This is pretty much the stuff nightmares are made of. You got a Georgia mom who has been charged with second-degree murder after what authorities are calling just a horrific act of neglect that led to the the death of her eight-month-old son. Investigators say, this baby died with burns caused by a hair dryer. Let me explain what we're talking about here. We have obtained the full incident report, so we're going to break down the exact details. But according to the report, on November 9th, 2023, Morgan Creel called 911, hysterical, telling authorities her infant son, Carson, was

unresponsive. When officers arrived, they found Creel standing at the back door of the home. She told them that her son was in the back bedroom, and what they discovered inside was devastating. Carson was found lying on the floor with his onesie partially pulled down, and as the officer began CPR, and as the report states, quote, Carson appeared severely burnt as well as discolored on the right side of his body. Now, despite the officer's attempts to save him, this little boy was pronounced dead at the scene. And when authorities asked Morgan what happened, she reportedly told them this. This is the report. She attempted to warm the child's feet by turning on the haird dryer. Units advised that Morgan stated she fell asleep and woke up to the juvenile unresponsive,

causing her to contact emergency services. Now, while securing the scene, according to the incident report, quote, the responding officer observed a marijuana smoking apparatus outside in the back port. So that's another factor we got to consider here because Creel was reportedly arrested the next day on a charge of cruelty to children in the second degree. She was later released on bond. Here's the thing about this. Authorities don't believe that Creole was just innocently taking a nap. No, rather they believe that she was under the influence of drugs.

Now what has happened? A grand jury has just indicted her. This happened on January 16th, just last month, on the cruelty to children charge. but also the bombshell second-degree murder charge. She was booked into jail on January 24th, but our understanding is based on looking at the court records, she is not an inmate there, so it's possible she may have been released on bond. According to the indictment that was reviewed by Fox 5, the grand jury believed that Creel wasn't just negligent, but was actually passed out from drugs when she left the blow dryer

on near her child. And a snippet from that indictment reads, quote, did cause cruel and excessive. of physical and mental pain by leaving a blow dryer on and blowing heated air near said child while said accused was passed out and under the influence of a controlled substance. Hey, by the way, guys, you got to hear this. So recent allegations against the multi-billion dollar video game industry claim that video games are engineered for addiction. Yeah, the claims try to make sense of the hold that video games seem to have over people

where they just can't put the controller down. Every win triggers that hit a dopamine, that creates a cycle of compulsion, and that disrupts daily life. It harms mental health, but our legal sponsors are taking on the industry that has many times put profit over safety, and they're working to potentially get compensation for all of those impacted. So if you were a loved one, have suffered physical or mental health issues due to video games to visit vG claims.com slash sidebar to answer less than 10 questions and check your eligibility to file a claim. Now, this story is far from over, and I'm going to get into wide as far from over in a minute. But first, I want to bring on a special guest, friend of the show,

in person, Dave Arrenberg, the former Palm Beach County State Attorney. Thank you so much for coming on. David's always good to see you. Appreciate taking the time. Jesse, great to be back with you. Generally speaking, at your time in the state attorney's office, did you see a lot of child abuse cases? What was it like investigating and prosecuting those specific instances? We've seen some horrific cases. We had one where the child was starved to death. And it was almost impossible to look at the photo of the child, the skeletal remains. In fact, we were so outraged. We sought the death penalty. And these cases are really hard, though, because in many times you have a defendant who is sympathetic. Like a mother who takes a stand and says

she's lost everything. She's already been punished enough by losing her child. And then she has this plausible explanation that she was just trying to warm up the child and fell asleep, although there were obviously drugs in her system. She was lying. But sometimes you get a jury where all it takes is one person to find sympathy for the parent and then that's a hung jury. See, I think about these cases why they're particularly difficult for me to cover is obviously the innocence, but you were dealing with a victim. There's no self-defense argument, right? You were dealing with a defenseless victim. You were dealing with somebody who can't care for themselves.

It's different than if you have like a murder case or self-defense case or, you know, there's explanations about what the victim did or did not do. When you're dealing with children, it seems to me, and you would know better, is the prosecution's success rate much stronger when it comes to child victims? Is it like either you see plea deals or you see convictions in the 90% range? You know, I don't think that the conviction rate differs that much because you have to look at the facts on a case-by-case basis. Remember the boy in the box case that was a case we had in my office

where parents punished their child by making them live in this box and people on the internet were outraged and the jury found the father guilty but then the judge gave only five years in prison so sometimes how the public feels about a case doesn't get reflected in how the judge or the jury reacts because it just depends

on the individual before them. They take the stand and they say we tried everything. In a case of intentional misconduct, yes, you'll get a higher percentage of convictions. But then you have cases like this where there's no intent here. It's just someone who acted so recklessly it led to a death. Let's talk about that.

So the second degree murder charge, that's really the big one we're looking out here. And in Georgia, I looked it up, it's defined as a person commits the offense of murder in the second degree. When in the commission of cruelty to children in the second degree, he or she causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice. So it's almost like felony murder, right? Someone dies during the commission of a felony. She didn't have to intend to kill her child. Do you think that that definition of second-degree murder, if that's how it's prosecuted, does it fit here? Yeah.

In fact, Cole Gray, remember that case in Georgia, same state where Georgia has a unique statute on the books, where the father of a school shooter was charged with second-degree murder. How? Well, when you have the charge of child neglect, you put children at risk, then a death occurs. That's how you get to second-degree murder in Georgia. It's unique in that way, because normally we're used to second-degree murder as an intentional homicide. Here doesn't have to be intentional. So let me pull up the cruelty to children charge, which is, I guess, that underlying charge, and she's also charged with this as well.

Any person commits the offense of cruelty to children in the second degree when such person with criminal negligence causes a child under the age of 18 cruel or excessive physical or mental pain. So I guess the idea is she would say, I wasn't acting negligently. this was an accident? She's going to use her drugs to say that she didn't have the right mindset to put someone at risk. She was just using a drug. She was trying to heat the child and then she fell asleep. So even though you don't need to intensely try to kill the child, she'll try to say, I didn't do something that was inherently that risky because I was using a hairdresser and things happened. Well, I guess the question would be, I read this. I said, how does

somebody die from wounds inflicted by a hair dryer? That's it. She would say I wouldn't, I didn't think the child was going to die. That's it. It's different than the normal case where you have a gun left on a table and then a child uses it, takes a gun, shoots himself and dies. That's the typical situation for this statute. It's tougher when it's a hair dryer.

Now, if you're going to use drugs, I would say as a prosecutor, you are now assuming the risk. You are putting yourself and the child in a very dangerous situation when you're doing anything under the influence of drugs and then even if it's a hair dryer and the baby dies, that's on you. You own it. So I think that's the argument in front of the jury. No, I get it. I get it. This child died. This was her fault, whether it's criminal liability, moral liability. It was her fault. It was what she did caused the death of this child. I mean, allegedly, right? But you have to say that. I think that's pretty clear whether or not it rises to the level of murder or cruelty to children, that will have to be seen.

the idea of using the blow dryer to warm up the child because according to reporting from Fox 5, the temperature on that day was approximately 68 degrees. What does that tell you? Well, it tells you that she didn't need to use the blow dryer. It wasn't that cold. This wasn't like a blizzard where she was really trying to help the baby's condition, help the baby sleep, keep the baby warm. This sounds like someone who's addled by drugs who created this dangerous situation when she didn't

have to. The fact that she lied, that she told police she just fell asleep when the police after was found out, no, you were on something. I think that's going to hurt her. Did she know? I mean, did she know that maybe she just fell asleep, maybe she didn't think about the effects of the marijuana, assuming that's what was in her system? We've seen cases before where the effect of drugs can actually be a mitigating factor.

There was a woman who stabbed another young man to death and because of the influence of drugs, effect it had on her, she had a lenient penalty for that. The effect of drugs will mitigate the intent portion because you didn't intend to do it. You're on drugs. On the other hand, you can't voluntarily take drugs and then say, I get out of jail free card, right? It's still a lesser offense of a manslaughter, but in Georgia, that lesser offense is the second-degree murder because they say if you create a dangerous situation for a child and someone dies, you don't have to have intent, that's second-degree murder.

you get up to 10 to 13 years in prison. Why did it take so long for her to be indicted? So if this happened in 2023 and then she was indicted just in 2025, why it takes so long? I was asking the same question. I don't know. I guess they were still investigating the case, but they had those, that drug information, that toxicology report, I'm sure, a while ago. Because you have to take the toxicology test early on or else the drugs dissipate in your system. So again, we're assuming, by the way, that there was, you know, drugs in her system.

The fact that she called 911 to help, does that help her case? It does, because there are going to be a lot of parents on that jury, and they're going to put themselves in her shoes, and they're going to say, if I was the mother there, I would call 911, I would be in hysterics. She was, and she did, and so that will help her. That's why if she takes a stand, it's not a slam dunk for prosecutors, because she could get the sympathy of the jury, and here she is this seemingly uneducated simpleton with the big glasses who's just, addicted to drugs or using marijuana and was in over her head, still a crime, but maybe not murder. Why did they charge her with murder as opposed to manslaughter? Is that unusual that she was charged with murder here? She would be charged with manslaughter in other states, but Georgia has a unique statute that brings us under the murder statute. It actually reads really well for this case. I think that it is murder in Georgia. It would be manslaughter elsewhere.

Would she try to fight the cause of death and saying it wasn't due to her actions? have a conflict an expert talk about the effects of a blow dryer or not and i don't know if that would be effective because how else did this child die yeah unless it was a another medical condition here that we don't know of it's going to be very hard for her to say that a baby that showed these visible wounds from the hair dryer did not die from the hair dryer she's going to have to come up with another explanation and if she tries to make this a battle of experts they got to bring someone who knows what they're talking about or else it's going to backfire against them i wanted to ask you you brought this up before. There's more to this story. So it turns out that this wasn't the first

time that Morgan Creel had found herself in legal trouble because I want to rewind to October of last year, 24, so almost a full year after the death of her son. And at this point, Creel was out on bond for the cruelty to children charge. But on October 28th, she was arrested again this time for driving under the influence after being spotted swerving through traffic. Now, according to the incident report that was obtained by law and crime, when Creel was pulled over, that is when things quickly took a turn for the worst. So the officer noticed her behavior right away, noting that she, quote, had slurred speech, that she was standing there, stumbling while speaking with her. The responding officer observed that she had slurred speech, droopy eyelids, bloodshot, and watery eyes, and she cleared her throat while speaking. Now, Fox 5 Atlanta reported that Creel tried to explain herself, telling the officer that she was just sneezing.

why she lost control of the car and when the officer asked if he could conduct some field sobriety tests she agreed but unfortunately she utterly failed all of them or i should say unfortunately for her according to the incident report during the test movement test creel displayed clear signs of intoxication struggling to keep her head still on this walk and turn test she swayed had trouble finding her balance the finger to nose test she was confused couldn't understand the instructions. The report also notes that several of the tests actually had to be stopped because Creel was such a risk to herself. Now, ultimately, she was arrested for driving under the influence. So, Dave, I'm made of questions here. First of all, were you surprised that she made

bond? She wasn't initially, you know, charged or indicted with cruelty children, but for the fact that she was arrested, she was on bond, then she was out driving for what she was arrested for initially with respect to her child. Typical should be out on bond? she's not a flight risk she's not a danger to society and because of the fact she's a mother who didn't intentionally try to kill her child that's why she got bond now that video I don't know if you see you know of her stumbling around on that roadside sobriety test is so bad I've never seen a worse one you can't even walk if that gets in that's gonna really hurt her I don't think it gets in

though unless she opens a door to it she may if she takes a stand to explain her actions, she could then backfire where that video comes in. So I think that she probably does not take the stand. And I think as long as they can keep that video out, she's got a fighting chance. You don't think prosecutors would try to get it in to say, look at how she's behaving in the sense of she lost her son. Does she seem remorseable? Well, no, I guess I not because it's a year later. Well, no, it's a year later, but I'm wondering. So she's not in charge with intentionally killing her son and, you know, where you see evidence after the fact, the person doesn't care, they're moving on with their life, but if you're talking about somebody who was acting

recklessly or negligently and didn't properly show the proper care or attention to their child, this is it with the behavior she's engaging in afterwards? Doesn't that show she'd admit, you know, this is a heartless mother? I mean, that's too much of a stretch, right? I love it. As a prosecutor, I say, yes, let it in. It's prejudicial. It's too prejudicial. It's more prejudicial and probative. It's a DUI, which doesn't pertain to this case. It's a year later. The one thing that's interesting about is that she's also, again, a liar. She has a truth-telling problem. She lied to police the day of the death, the second-degree murder case, and then she lied to police here.

She was sneezing? That's why she was weaving it out. I've never heard that before either. Then she gets out, she's stumbling all over herself. So clearly it wasn't the allergies that did that. Well, talk to me about, you said that she could open the door. If she takes the stand, what could she say that would open the door for this to? come in.

I don't use drugs. I'm not under the influence of anything. Okay. Well, here. Gotcha. Okay. But doesn't it, could it be used? And the reason I'm only playing devil's advocate in trying to talk about the defense is I think

this is a really bad case for her. You know, I think there's a stronger argument she will be convicted if this goes to trial. But having said that, does this help her defense in any way, state of mind, her personal struggles? She can't even keep it together. You know, it's not her fault necessarily. It's not murder necessarily. It's not cruelty to children necessarily that her personal struggles led to the death of her child. I do think that you will hear from her at the trial, even though she's unlikely to take the stand.

And that is through the 911 call. And that's where her emotion will come out and will help her. That's where the defense will try to put the jurors in her shoes, saying she's a grieving mother. Don't compound the tragedy. She's already lost everything in her life. No, I agree. I think that's, I think this is very fair. I think people look at this and we'll probably say this shows a pattern of alleged reckless behavior and it's really concerning. Do you think that this goes to trial or do you think that they try to work out a deal? Well, deals are always on the table and this could, they say in the halls of justice, a lot of the justice is done in the halls. So this could settle. But in the end, it's up to the defendant whether she's going to accept responsibility for her actions and agree to jail time, prison time. there's no way that the state is going to let this go without her serving real prison time.

And that's really the difference maker in this. So let's talk about that. If she's convicted on both the second-degree murder, I understand to be 10 to 30 years in prison. Correct. Cruelty to children carries up to 10 years in prison, if I'm right about that. As far as I know, yes, correct. So could she be looking at potentially 40 years in prison? No, those are the maximums. That's for someone with a lengthy track record.

In this case, I think because of the circumstances, the fact she doesn't have a prior rap sheet except for the DUI, which then that's how it could be taken into consideration at sentencing. I think she'll get towards the lower end of the sentencing range, plus she'll be a sympathetic defendant here. It is just true. Well, when it compares to someone who intentionally tried to kill the child, plus also, she's a young woman. And I said it in pejorative terms, but she's going to say, Your Honor, I didn't know any better. I was just trying to warm my baby up, and I fell asleep, and yes, I was doing drugs, but that's what happened. And I think as a result, she'll get prison.

She needs to get prison. You can't kill your baby and just walk free. In fact, in that video, it doesn't look that she was super affected by it. I know it's a year later. That's the point I was trying to make. That's where you can come in maybe in sentencing, but, you know, where they say, you know, she showed no remorse. A year later, she's out there, somehow she's out there driving, intoxicated, or on drugs. and you would think a person would be chastened.

You'd think a person who ends up killing her daughter because she's on drugs would say, never again, I'm a new person. Nah, it doesn't seem to have changed much. If she gets, whatever prison time she would get, if she's ultimately convicted, let's say eight years, 10 years. I don't know what it would be,

but is there early release? How does that work? Georgia, like other states, offer some sort of early release. Like in Florida, we don't even offer parole anymore. We abolish our parole system, but you serve 85% of your sentence if you have good behavior.

So Georgia has something similar. So, yes, I do think that she will get towards the bottom of the sentencing maximum or minimum, where it's closer to 10 years than 30 years. And then within that, she'll get some time off of good behavior. It is a really, really sad story. When I read about it, I had to do a double take. I couldn't believe what I was reading. We'll continue to keep an eye on it, see how it progresses.

It's one that really unfortunately stands out for all the wrong reasons. Dave Arrenberg, good seeing you. Thanks so much for coming in. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Jesse. All right, everybody. That is all. have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please

subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.