A Utah federal grand jury has indicted a Weber County mother, accusing her of sending threatening letters to a woman who rescued her suffocating 13-month-old daughter more than four years ago.
Julie Estes, Ogden, is charged with mailing five letters last year, all threatening to injure Sherry Ricketts, Ogden.Estes was arrested May 9, 1985, for investigation of attempting to suffocate her baby, Katrina Estes, at an Ogden restaurant. Ricketts stopped the woman, according to witnesses.
"Her little baby was crying so she started stuffing napkins down her throat," prosecutor Bill Ryan said Thursday. "The little kid started to turn blue," when Ricketts, a waitress working at the restaurant, intervened and "basically saved the baby's life," he said.
Estes was convicted of attempted murder and placed on probation, state Corrections Department officials said. Katrina was placed in a foster home, and Michael R. Howard, the father of the woman's other child, was given custody of 5-year-old Amber Estes, court records show.
The indictment contends that from April through September of 1988 Estes sent Howard and Ricketts typed letters. The letters were sent to an FBI crime lab where an examination found the defendant's fingerprints.
Estes has been held in the Salt Lake County Jail since her Sept. 15 arrest.