Mother pleads guilty to allowing 3-year-old’s death

With trial slated to begin, a mother pleaded guilty to allowing her 3-year-old daughter to die from a 17-pound tumor in January 2019.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin in Comanche County District Judge Jay Walker’s courtroom in the trial of Bonnie Beth Mills-Lilly, 48, tried for felony charges of first-degree manslaughter and manslaughter, records indicate. The manslaughter count is punishable by no less than four years in prison.

Instead, Mills-Lilly pleaded guilty to both counts. Walker found her competent to enter the plea.

Following a jury trial in November 2024, Mills-Lilly was found competent to stand trial for the counts. She had twice before been found incompetent and was housed in mental institutions.

Mills-Lilly and her husband Henry Clarence Lilly III, 56, were charged in January 2019 for not providing medical care to their daughter, “Baby Beth,” which led to her death, according to the charges.

According to the State Medical Examiner’s autopsy report, Bonnie Beth Lilly died Jan. 3, 2019, as a result of rhabdomyosarcoma. Her manner of death was identified as natural. The report states the 17-pound tumor comprised half the girl’s body weight.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a type of cancer of soft tissue (such as muscle), connective tissue (such as tendon or cartilage), or bone. Its symptoms include: a persistent lump or swelling in parts of the body; bulging of the eye or a swollen eyelid, headache and nausea, trouble urinating or having bowel movements, blood in the urine, and bleeding from the nose, throat, vagina or rectum.

The Comanche County Sheriff’s Office received a call on Jan. 3, 2019, about the girl being unconscious but breathing at a camper home near Lake Lawtonka and found her and six other children living with her parents, the Lillys, in an RV. The girl was taken to a local hospital where she died.

The parents were arrested and their other children placed into DHS custody. They are now living with relatives. The family had been leading a nomadic lifestyle, traveling the country in the RV while the father worked remotely.

Following trial in February 2024, Henry Lilly was found guilty by a jury of first-degree manslaughter and child abuse.

The jury recommended he serve five years in prison for the manslaughter count and another 13 years for the charge of child abuse.

Following a requested pre-sentencing investigation, Mills-Lilly is scheduled to be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. April 28, records indicate.