Who is the North Carolina mom who murdered her 9-month-old daughter because ‘God told her to’?

Content warning: This article describes child murder. Please take care while reading.

Around 5 a.m. on July 12, 2024, officers with the Catawba County, NC Sheriff’s Office responded to reports of a nude person on the side of the road who appeared to be disoriented. What the person led them to was the body of a murdered 9-month-old infant. And the mother who now stands accused of the crime reportedly tried to kill the child once before.

According to the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office, police followed 39-year-old Megan Stack Sattizahn, the disoriented person in question, back to her home. Once there, officers questioned Sattizahn, who invited them inside, telling them “the baby is dead.” The police then entered Sattizahn’s residence and found 9-month-old Samantha Sattizahan in her crib, dead from an apparent drug overdose.

Sattizahn said it was a “mercy killing”

Once Samantha Sattizahn’s body was found, Megan Sattizahn was transported to a local hospital for a mental health evaluation. Megan reportedly told the police while in transit that her daughter’s murder was a “mercy killing,” and that she had done it because “God told her to.” When Megan was arrested, Scott Sattizhan, her husband, also spoke with the authorities. He told them Megan had mental health issues, and was prescribed medication that she had stopped taking, The News-Herald reported (via the Internet Archive).

While investigating Samantha’s death, authorities learned that Megan had tried to give her daughter crushed-up anti-psychotic medication once before, but the baby survived the attempted poisoning. That attack was never reported to the authorities.

Sattizahn’s 2017 incident

Reports also say that Megan Sattizahn has at least one other daughter, Ava. In 2017, Sattizahn, then Megan Stack, disappeared with then 8-year-old Ava for two days in South Carolina after picking her up from school. Stack reportedly turned herself in in Missouri, and she and Ava were unharmed. Megan, however, did undergo a mental health evaluation, WSOC-TV reported that year.

Timothy Lybarger, Ava’s dad, with whom she was reunited once she was found alive, told the media that Megan seemed to have experienced a mental health crisis, and was telling him at that time people were after her. “Mr. Lybarger has made arrangements for Ava to be safely transported back to her home in Charlotte, North Carolina where she will be reunited with her family,” a statement from Lybarger’s attorney said in part.

Sattizahn’s July 22 court appearance

Megan Sattizahn was held in custody after Samantha Sattizahn’s murder, and made her first court appearance on July 22. Catawba County officials told People this was her first offense in that area. At this writing, Megan was held without bond, as the district attorney seeks a first-degree murder indictment. Megan had not yet entered a plea. Sattizahn’s neighbors reportedly told WSOC-TV, “I’d seen them strolling the baby down the road a few times, pulling her in a wagon,” and that they would play in the yard “… like a happy family.”