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Esperanza Rae Harding, left, told police she drowned her baby, Mateo Harding, in a bathtub, according to documents. Edwin Cosmo Trudeau, right, told her to throw the body away, and he did not seek help, authorities said. (Mug shots: Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)
A man who told a mother not to be sorry for killing her infant son has been sentenced for coaching her on how to discard the baby, Mateo Harding.
Edwin Cosmo Trudeau, 20, is set to spend 74 months in prison with 145 days’ time-served credit for serving as an accomplice after the fact. The mother, Esperanza Rae Harding, 21, was sentenced in March to 32 years in prison for second-degree intentional murder. Both had pleaded guilty.
According to authorities in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Harding texted Trudeau in frustration while at a hotel. She said her son, 7-month-old Mateo, had ruined her bath with his crying.
“He doing to much rn, I can’t f—ing sleep,” she wrote on Feb. 28, 2024. “Im trying tho, Im about to do something bad, Please answer me, He going to no be here much longer.”
But instead of talking her down, Trudeau was supportive of her homicidal impulse.
“Ok that’s ok,” he wrote.
Then, when the mother texted that Mateo was dead and she was sorry, Trudeau replied, “Don’t be.”
Trudeau served as her cheerleader, comparing themselves to bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde, and saying, “If you go down, I go down no matter what.” Harding told authorities that her boyfriend did not like the baby and that he wanted her to give up the infant for adoption.
“She stated that Trudeau wanted her to prove that he was her top priority,” they wrote.
According to authorities, Trudeau arrived to find the baby dead in the bathroom. He attempted CPR, but instead of seeking help from first responders, he had sex with the mother before leaving the hotel room.
Trudeau told her, in the paraphrasing of the affidavit, “keep her mouth shut.”
“If you go down, I go down no matter what,” he said.
He told her to take the baby to the dumpster to make it seem like she was throwing trash out.
“Mr. Trudeau attempted to help conceal a violent, heartbreaking act,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement on Monday. “All of our thoughts are with Mateo’s family. They should be getting ready to celebrate his second birthday, and instead they’re left with a lifetime of grief. Mr. Trudeau is being held accountable for his actions.”
