A 7-year-old Illinois boy told his grandma, “Mama is going to kill me,” and recalled repeated attempts by his mother to kill him before he was suffocated to death.

Sarah Safranek, 38, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of the young boy after prosecutors uncovered her chilling internet search history. Nathaniel Burton died on February 18, 2021. Prosecutors say Safranek suffocated him in their Ogle County home on February 17, 2021. He was rushed to the hospital but passed away the following day.

The boy’s grandmother told police that Nathaniel came to her around two months before the murder and claimed his mom had “come into his bedroom and put a pillow over his head while he was sleeping,” according to court filings. His other grandmother also reported similar claims from Nathaniel, including that Safranek had tried “drowning him in a bathtub.”

The boy “constantly told her he was worried that [Safranek] was going to suffocate him,” according to prosecutors. When Nathaniel was five, he went to live with a foster family for a few months, and he allegedly told them about one incident where “he was kneeling by the couch with the cushion off and playing with toy cars when [Safranek] threw the cushion over him, sat on it, and would not get off,” according to court documents.

During witness testimony, Nathaniel’s paternal grandmother said he’d told her, “Mama is going to kill me.” Safranek allegedly denied what the boy said and told the grandmother he was lying.

The grandmother said she tried to contact child services, but claimed she never heard back from them. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) visited the residence approximately twelve times over two years before the boy’s death, as reported by the Shaw Local News Network.

Despite these visits, DCFS found no evidence of parental misconduct, according to Shaw Local. The court also heard about a series of chilling searches Safranek made both before and after Nathaniel’s death.

One included: “What is it called when a parent is obsessed with the thought of killing their child?”

On the day of the murder, prosecutors said she searched online for “How much does cremation of a child cost?” and “How long does an investigation take after a child passes away?”

She also allegedly looked up information about poisons and even “how to kill someone with a voodoo doll,” according to the prosecution. Her journal revealed that she was “reflecting that she hurts her kids,” prosecutors said.

Judge Anthony Peska ordered that Safranek serve 100 percent of her sentence. Once completed, she is required to serve three years of mandatory supervised release.