Autumn Grace Woods received a 10-year sentence, with most of it suspended, after pleading guilty in Nelson County.

LOVINGSTON, Va. — A Nelson County judge sentenced Autumn Grace Woods to 10 years in prison Friday, with six years and six months suspended, after she pleaded guilty in the death of her 6-week-old son, Cyrus James Garfield.

The sentence means Woods is expected to serve about three and a half years behind bars for voluntary manslaughter and felony child abuse. The ruling came more than 16 months after deputies and emergency medical workers were called to a home on Taylors Creek Road in Afton for an unresponsive infant who later died at the University of Virginia Medical Center.

Woods had first faced a second-degree murder charge in the case, but prosecutors and the defense reached a plea agreement that lowered the homicide count. She pleaded guilty in February to voluntary manslaughter and child abuse. In court, prosecutors described a case that began as a report of a baby not breathing but developed into a child abuse investigation after medical experts reviewed the child’s injuries. The judge imposed a 10-year sentence and suspended most of it, leaving the active prison time at three years and six months.

The case began Dec. 10, 2024, when Nelson County sheriff’s deputies and emergency medical personnel responded to the Afton home. First responders performed CPR for several minutes before the child was taken to UVA Medical Center in Charlottesville. Cyrus died there on Dec. 14, 2024. An autopsy was completed through the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, but the findings were not finalized until March 2025. Investigators later said those findings, combined with a review of medical records, supported abuse charges.

At Woods’ plea hearing, prosecutors said officers found the baby “blue” and bleeding from the mouth when they arrived. Woods told authorities she had fallen asleep on a couch with the infant, according to accounts of the hearing. She said the child’s father, Ethan Garfield, later came home from work, picked up the baby and slept with him on another couch. The couple woke up later and found the baby was not breathing, according to the account given to investigators.

Medical findings became the center of the case. Prosecutors said the cause of death was suffocation. They also said the baby had multiple broken ribs that happened before his death, a detail they used to show that the case involved more than one moment of danger. Investigators did not say they had a witness who saw the fatal injury occur. Attorneys on both sides acknowledged that the exact sequence of events in the final moments of the baby’s life may never be known.

The child’s father remains a separate defendant. Ethan Garfield was charged in the case along with Woods after investigators obtained arrest warrants in May 2025. He has faced murder and child abuse charges and was scheduled for a plea hearing after Woods was sentenced. His case keeps the court file active even after Woods’ sentencing, and it could bring more details into the record if he enters a plea or if prosecutors outline evidence against him in open court.

The charging timeline stretched across several months. After Cyrus died in December 2024, authorities waited for the autopsy and later medical reviews before seeking warrants. On May 16, 2025, UVA medical experts reviewed hospital records and the chief medical examiner’s report. Four days later, investigators obtained warrants for both biological parents. They were taken into custody by Nelson County deputies and held without bond at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

Cyrus James Garfield was born Nov. 2, 2024, in Charlottesville and lived in Afton. A memorial service was held Jan. 18, 2025, at Mount Moriah Church in Crozet. The obituary listed his parents as Ethan William Garfield and Autumn Grace Woods and named surviving relatives on both sides of the family. The public court case later put those same names into a criminal proceeding centered on what happened inside the home during the child’s short life.

Woods’ sentence also shows the difference between the formal sentence and the active time she must serve. The judge imposed 10 years, but suspended six years and six months. Suspended time can remain over a defendant if conditions are violated after release, depending on the final order. The active sentence, however, is the part that sent Woods to prison for about three and a half years after her guilty plea.

The case now stands with Woods sentenced and Garfield’s prosecution still pending. The next major court step is expected to focus on Garfield’s plea hearing and any statement prosecutors make about his role in the events that led to Cyrus’ death.

Author note: Last updated May 20, 2026.