Adams County mother pleads guilty in toddler's suffocation death

Tien Hawkins has admitted enough to narrow one of Adams County’s most painful cases to two criminal counts, child endangering and permitting child abuse, in the death of her 2-year-old daughter. The plea leaves Hawkins facing sentencing in the Adams County Court of Common Pleas on June 17, and it sharpens the central question that has shadowed the case from the start: how abuse in a West Union apartment reached the point of a toddler’s suffocation death.

The case began when deputies were called to the Timber Ridge Apartment Complex in West Union after a report of an unresponsive child. Adams County Prosecutor Aaron Haslam said the adults inside the apartment were attempting CPR when they called 911. Haslam later said the child’s preliminary cause of death was asphyxiation or suffocation. He also said the toddler’s 1-year-old and 5-year-old siblings had injuries consistent with abuse, were taken to local hospitals and were placed in the custody of Adams County Children’s Services.

Hawkins had originally faced murder, involuntary manslaughter and additional child-endangering and abuse-related charges. Her plea marks a step toward closing the prosecution, but it does not answer the broader public safety questions raised by the case. Haslam said both the mother and Brian Moser had a duty of care to the children, and he has said Hawkins knew about the abuse and allowed it to continue. That makes the case more than a single tragic death. It is also a test of whether warning signs inside the home, and outside it, were missed long enough for a child to die.

Moser, who changed his name from Terry Smith III the day before the fatal incident, pleaded guilty in March to involuntary manslaughter and two counts of endangering children. He was sentenced to 17 to 22.5 years in prison. Court coverage also showed the original indictment against Moser carried ten felony charges, with some dismissed with prejudice under the plea agreement. Hawkins’s own case has moved through a changing legal team as well. Her former attorney, Amanda Burgess, was found in contempt of court and removed from the case in August 2025, after which court-appointed attorneys Mackenzi Carrington and Jonathan Walker took over.

For Adams County, the plea closes one chapter, but the questions around the home, the surviving children and the systems meant to protect them remain central to the public record.