Victoria Moreno’s statements and surveillance footage became key parts of a prosecution that ended with a guilty plea and 40-year sentence.
CHICAGO, Ill. — Surveillance video, accounts from people at Navy Pier and statements Victoria Moreno gave police formed the central public record of a murder case that ended nearly four years later with her guilty plea and a 40-year prison sentence.
Cook County prosecutors had been prepared to use that evidence to argue that Moreno deliberately pushed her 3-year-old nephew, Josiah Brown, into Lake Michigan on Sept. 19, 2022, and then did nothing to rescue him. The case never reached a jury. Moreno, now 38, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in September 2026, and Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Byrne imposed the prison term. Reporting on the court disposition said Byrne found her guilty but mentally ill. The plea resolved a prosecution that had changed from attempted murder to murder after Josiah died six days after being pulled from the lake.
Investigators had an unusual source of evidence from the start: cameras at one of Chicago’s busiest tourist destinations. Prosecutors said surveillance footage captured Moreno and Josiah near chains designed to keep visitors away from the edge of the pier. Their account said the 3-year-old went beneath the barrier, after which Moreno crossed it, positioned herself near him and pushed him into the water. Before pleading guilty, Moreno’s attorney disputed the claim that she intentionally caused the fall and argued that her being near the child at the edge did not necessarily exclude an accident. A trial would have forced jurors to evaluate those competing interpretations of what the video showed.
The recording was not the only evidence. People nearby responded after Josiah entered the water, and their observations became part of the case. Witnesses called emergency services and obtained a life ring as the child struggled in Lake Michigan. One person later described seeing Josiah before he disappeared beneath the surface. Prosecutors said Moreno herself did not call for help or attempt a rescue. Chicago Fire Department divers ultimately recovered the boy after about 30 minutes. He had suffered cardiac arrest and was taken to a hospital in critical condition. He remained alive for six days before dying Sept. 25.
Moreno’s account at the scene also changed, according to prosecutors. When police first began questioning her, authorities said she presented herself as though she were another witness and did not know the boy in the lake. She later admitted that Josiah was her nephew. In another statement, she told investigators that she had brought the child to Navy Pier to go on the rides. Those statements were significant because police were simultaneously reconstructing how Moreno and Josiah had traveled from their family’s home in suburban Des Plaines to downtown Chicago and how they came to be at the water’s edge.
The reconstruction began earlier that morning. Prosecutors said Josiah had been in the care of relatives at the Des Plaines residence when Moreno obtained keys to a family vehicle and left with him without permission. Authorities said the family became alarmed after discovering they were gone. The concern was heightened by an incident about a week earlier in which prosecutors said Moreno had taken several children to Navy Pier without authorization. During that earlier trip, an older child contacted relatives and provided the group’s location. Prosecutors also said Moreno was not supposed to drive, citing medication and concerns within the family.
On Sept. 19, Moreno drove Josiah into Chicago, according to the prosecution. Authorities said she first tried to take him to the Shedd Aquarium but was unable to enter because she had cash and could not use it to pay admission. She then went to Navy Pier. Reports based on the prosecution’s court presentation said Moreno bought the boy a meal before the two went outside. Those details were not evidence of a crime by themselves, but they helped establish a chronology that investigators could compare with surveillance video, witness accounts and Moreno’s own explanation for why she had brought Josiah downtown.
The legal status of the case changed when Josiah died. Because he had initially survived the rescue, Moreno was first charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery to a child younger than 13. After his death, the Cook County medical examiner concluded that Josiah died from complications of drowning and classified the death as a homicide. Prosecutors then upgraded the charges to murder. The medical finding established the cause and manner of death, while the criminal case still required prosecutors to establish Moreno’s responsibility and intent. For years, Moreno maintained a not-guilty position as those issues remained unresolved.
The evidence was ready for eventual courtroom testing, but another legal question repeatedly slowed the case: whether Moreno was mentally competent to stand trial. Her lawyers said she had diagnoses including depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder. In February 2024, a judge found her fit to proceed while taking medication. Defense attorneys later sought another psychiatric evaluation, which the court allowed. Records continued to describe her as fit while medicated, and she was again found able to proceed shortly before the guilty plea. Those competency determinations did not decide what happened at Navy Pier; they determined whether she could understand the proceedings and work with her lawyers.
That distinction became important in the final disposition. When Moreno pleaded guilty, Byrne found her guilty but mentally ill, according to reports citing court records and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. The result acknowledged her documented mental-health history without preventing a murder conviction or prison term. Earlier competency rulings had allowed the prosecution to continue; the plea then eliminated the need for a jury to decide whether the state’s video, witness testimony, medical evidence and statements proved the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Moreno received a 40-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
For prosecutors, the case had developed in layers rather than around a single witness. Video supplied an account of the movements near the pier. Bystanders described the emergency and Moreno’s conduct after Josiah entered the lake. Fire Department personnel documented the recovery. Medical authorities determined why the child died. Police recorded Moreno’s statements, while relatives and the earlier unauthorized Navy Pier trip supplied context for how she came to have Josiah with her. The defense had challenged the most important inference — that the child was intentionally pushed — but the guilty plea meant that disagreement was never resolved through competing presentations before jurors.
The plea also prevented a public trial from revisiting in greater detail one of the most disturbing portions of the prosecution’s evidence: the period when Josiah remained in the water as bystanders sought help. Contemporary reporting described witnesses who were deeply affected by what they saw. The central newsworthy point is that other people summoned assistance while prosecutors said Moreno did not. Divers eventually found the child and brought him out of the lake, but the prolonged submersion left him critically injured. His death six days later was the event that transformed the original charges and placed the case on the path toward a murder prosecution.
Almost four years after those first pieces of evidence were gathered, the prosecution ended without the evidentiary contest a trial would have produced. Moreno’s guilty plea established criminal responsibility in court, Byrne entered judgment and imposed the 40-year term, and the unresolved defense theory of an accidental fall was no longer headed for jury consideration. Moreno is now under sentence in the Illinois prison system. The final judgment closes the criminal case built from the Navy Pier cameras, people who witnessed the emergency, medical findings and the defendant’s own statements after Josiah entered Lake Michigan.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.