After a daycare worker was charged with involuntary manslaughter, the civil case adds detailed allegations.

LENOIR, N.C. — The parents of a 16-month-old girl who died on her first day at a Lenoir daycare have filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging a worker forced the toddler face down onto a nap mat, covered her head with a blanket and lay on top of her while using a phone.

The lawsuit, filed in Caldwell County, pushes a case that had already led to a criminal charge into a new phase. Alexandra Coffey, a former employee at Creative Beginnings, was arrested in May 2025 and charged with involuntary manslaughter after Madolyn Amara “Maddy” Mitchell died. The civil complaint, brought by Angel Dawn Blankenship and Jovon Jerell Mitchell, lays out a detailed account of the child’s final hours and asks a jury for compensatory and punitive damages.

According to the complaint, Maddy arrived at Creative Beginnings on May 19, 2025, for her first day at the daycare in Lenoir. By late morning, court records cited in earlier reporting say the toddler had been put down for a nap at 11:45 a.m. The new lawsuit says Coffey was trying to make Maddy stay on a sleeping mat and, after the child got up, grabbed her and put her back face down. The filing alleges Coffey then covered Maddy’s head with a blanket, pinned the child’s legs with her own and pressed the upper part of her body across the toddler’s torso and neck. The parents’ complaint says Maddy kicked one free leg for several minutes before she stopped moving.

The lawsuit goes further, alleging Coffey remained on top of the child while scrolling on her phone, then got up and returned to other work without checking on Maddy for about three hours. When she finally looked again, the complaint says, the toddler was still under the blanket, motionless and already showing early rigor mortis. Earlier local reporting said first responders were called after 2:30 p.m., when the child was found unresponsive. A 911 caller later released in local media said a child was not breathing and was “turning blue.” The same reporting said the caller told dispatchers she had believed the child was asleep. Emergency crews tried lifesaving measures, but Maddy was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a hospital.

The medical findings described in the lawsuit raised the stakes of a case that at first unfolded with limited public detail. The parents’ complaint says the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide and listed the cause as smothering from compression asphyxia. Spectrum News reported it could not independently obtain the autopsy report because North Carolina law now limits public release of some medical examiner records while cases remain incomplete. That means much of the public account still rests on what police, court files and the civil complaint have disclosed. The complaint also says Coffey owed Maddy a duty of care that included close supervision, a safe sleeping environment and monitoring for signs of distress, and that those duties were breached in a way the parents describe as gross negligence.

Even before the lawsuit was filed, the case had already changed the future of the daycare itself. State health officials suspended the license of the center’s operator, Kids Time of Lenoir LLC, on May 21, 2025, ordering Creative Beginnings to close. A state notice said emergency action was required for public health, safety or welfare. Local television reporting later said the closure remained in place after officials confirmed there was no longer a pending appeal of the suspension. Earlier coverage also cited state inspection records showing that in August 2024, staff members at the center were not all properly certified in first aid and CPR. Officials have not publicly tied that earlier finding to Maddy’s death, but the record added to scrutiny of the facility after the child’s killing.

The criminal case and the civil lawsuit now move on separate tracks. Coffey was arrested in May 2025, booked in Caldwell County and held on a $500,000 secured bond before later bonding out, according to earlier reports. She has not publicly responded in court to the wrongful death filing. Law and Crime reported that her legal team had not yet answered the civil complaint, and that a next criminal trial date had not been scheduled as of mid-March 2026. The lawsuit seeks a jury trial. In North Carolina, that means the family is asking one panel to decide liability and money damages while prosecutors continue to handle whether the state can prove the criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

For Maddy’s family, the filings have kept public attention on a death that shocked a small foothills community. In an earlier television interview after the arrest, Maddy’s mother said the family wanted “justice for Maddy” and answers about how a first day at daycare became a death investigation. Reporters in Lenoir described workers removing items from the center in the days after the state shutdown, while police took a video recorder, a blanket and a mattress cover as evidence. The new lawsuit gives the family’s version of events in the starkest detail yet, but several questions remain unsettled, including what surveillance footage may show, what witnesses told investigators and how prosecutors may frame the evidence at trial.

The case now stands at a point where both a civil damages fight and a criminal prosecution are active, with no new criminal court date publicly set as of March 17, 2026. The next major milestone is likely Coffey’s formal response to the lawsuit or a scheduling move in the manslaughter case.

Author note: Last updated April 8, 2026.