Left: Melissa Bilby and her daughter (GoFundMe). Right: Amanda L. Greger (Clermont County Jail).
An Ohio woman, found wearing a sweatshirt stained with blood after brutally assaulting her friend’s infant daughter during an overnight babysitting stint, has been sentenced to prison.
Amanda Leigh Greger, 38, received a prison sentence of at least three and a half years in May for the severe beating of the 1-year-old daughter of her friend, Melissa Bilby.
In November, as reported by Law&Crime, Greger was charged with inflicting injuries on the child, resulting in blood oozing from her right eye and a brain bleed. The injuries were so critical that doctors placed the baby in intensive care under heavy sedation.
On May 28, Greger entered a guilty plea to one count of felonious assault, according to court documents reviewed by Law&Crime. In exchange, prosecutors dropped additional charges, including child endangerment.
Greger also admitted to tampering with evidence. Authorities reported that upon returning home from her night shift in Goshen Township, near Cincinnati, Bilby discovered Greger asleep in the room with the infant. Greger was allegedly wearing a hooded sweatshirt stained with what appeared to be blood and vomit.
Investigators also discovered bloodstains “located throughout the room,” police wrote in the affidavit.
“The clothing [the victim] had been wearing was found in the washing machine, washed but still visibly stained,” the affidavit reads.
The victim’s mother confirmed that the stained clothing found in the washing machine was the same clothing that her daughter had been wearing when she left for work the previous evening and before she suffered the injuries.
According to the sentencing order, Greger did not speak at the hearing.
“The Court inquired of the defendant if they had anything to say on their behalf prior to sentencing, or if there is any good and sufficient reason why sentence should not be pronounced, and the defendant stated they did not,” the order says.
Following the baby’s admission to the hospital, Lindsay Bilby, the victim’s aunt, started a GoFundMe page for the victim and her family. The page identified the mother as Melissa Bilby and described Greger as a “lifetime friend” of Bilby’s whom she “trusted to protect and keep her kids safe while she worked to provide for them.”
The page also provided additional details about the victim’s injuries and prognosis.
“[The victim] was admitted to PICU [pediatric intensive care unit] with a brain bleed, bruised lungs, fluid along her spine, and fluid around her heart,” the fundraising page says. “She was intubated, then placed on a ventilator, and she is being kept heavily sedated to help her heal.”