A 63-year-old grandmother is set to spend her life in prison after killing her 3-year-old granddaughter and dumping her deteriorating body in a garbage can for many days.
Becky Vreeland pled no contest to first-degree murder in the killing of her granddaughter, Riley Nolan. A judge sentenced her to 45 years, with the chance of parole after serving 85% of her term, or around 38 years. According to court documents, the plea deal included the dismissal of a charge of desecration of a human corpse.
On June 21, 2022, Oklahoma City Police Department officers arrived at a home on Southwest 151st Street and learned that a kid had died inside. Officers discovered Nolan’s body in a garbage container and observed “obvious signs of trauma to her body.” According to court documents obtained by KFOR-TV, Vreeland claimed she discovered the child’s body on June 18, 2022, but waited several days to inform anybody “because she was so upset.”
She reportedly informed authorities that when she awoke on June 18, 2022, she discovered Nolan wasn’t asleep in her bed. She noticed the lid was closed outdoors, even though she “advised she had placed toys inside the trash can the night before and had left the lid open.” Vreeland reportedly observed a ladder next to the receptacle that had not previously been present. Vreeland opened the lid and “saw Riley’s feet sticking out of the toys, and Riley’s head was below the toys.”
Vreeland allegedly “could tell Riley was not alive” after touching her feet. KFOR alleges that Vreeland “left Riley in the trash can because she was so upset and she did not want to tell her son about Riley’s death, until he had been released from jail, and had been able to have Father’s Day with the other kids.”According to KFOR, Nolan’s siblings informed police that they saw her with a bruise on her forehead. The medical examiner ruled that Nolan died from blunt force trauma to the head. She suffered a skull fracture as well as other brain injuries. Her death was deemed murder.
