Cheyanne Harris is a killer from Iowa who was convicted of the murder of her four month old son
According to court documents four month old Sterling Koehn was found dead in his mechanical swing by emergency personnel. Cheyanne Harris and her boyfriend Zachary Koehn would admit to police that they had not changed Sterling diaper in the prior two weeks
Due to the diaper not being changed it would attract flies which in turn would lay eggs that turned to maggots and ultimately mass infection in Sterling little body. An autopsy would also determine the four month old also died from severe dehydration and malnutrition
Cheyanne Harris and Zachary Kohen would be arrested and convicted of murder
Cheyanne Harris would be sentenced to life without parole
Zachary Kohen would also be sentenced to life without parole
Cheyanne Harris Case
An Iowa woman was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after being found guilty of allowing her infant son to starve to death in 2017.
Cheyanne Harris, 21, was ordered to spend life in prison without parole for the death of her 4-month-old son, Sterling Koehn.
Harris was convicted of first-degree murder and child endangerment causing death earlier this month after emergency officials found the infant dead in a mechanical baby swing in the Iowa apartment she shared with the child’s father, Zachary Koehn.
The couple didn’t change the infant’s diaper for nearly two weeks before he was found dead. Officials said it attracted flies that laid eggs and hatched into maggots that crawled in his clothes and his skin for days while he was still alive.
Sterling died of malnutrition, dehydration and infection and the state medical examiner determined his death was a homicide.
The child endangerment charge was merged with the murder charge at sentencing.
Koehn, 29, was also sentenced to life in prison in December after being convicted on charges of first-degree murder and child endangerment causing death.
Cheyanne Harris News
A jury on Wednesday found a northeast Iowa mother guilty of murder in the death of her infant son, whose body was found in a maggot-infested diaper.
Cheyanne Harris, 21, was convicted of first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death after her son, Sterling Koehn, died of malnutrition, dehydration and infection. The baby’s father, Zachary Koehn, 29, was convicted in November of the same charges.
Plymouth County jurors returned the verdict after more than five hours of deliberations. Harris will later be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Sterling was found dead on a mechanical swing, weighing less than seven pounds, in the couple’s apartment in Alta Vista, a small city in northeast Iowa. Feces in his diaper ate through his skin, allowing E. coli bacteria to enter his bloodstream and cause infection.
The hot room he was in attracted flies, which laid eggs that hatched into maggots while Sterling was alive; they crawled in his clothes and his diaper for days, prosecutors said. A forensic entomologist who examined insects on Sterling’s body concluded the baby had been in his swing for nine to 14 days in the same diaper.
Autopsy photographs appeared to show the boy — wearing camouflage pants and a shirt with a cartoon cow above the words “let’s play” — bleeding from the mouth. Harris cried in court after prosecutors showed the jury crime scene photographs.
At the beginning of the trial, a public defender representing Harris said while Sterling’s death is a tragedy, it was not a planned murder. Harris suffered from postpartum depression and self-medicated, but she had no desire to harm her son, she said.
“The monster, in this case, is mental health,” Nichole Watt said
At trial, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Agent Chris Callaway testified Harris questioned her maternal care during an interview. She told the agent of Sterling: “I should have checked on him more,” the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported.
A babysitter testified the infant had a raw diaper rash and seemed underweight, but ate hungrily, the Courier reported. The first time she babysat, Harris left then-3-month-old Sterling and a 2-year-old girl with her for 17 hours, she told the jury.
The infant’s father called 911 on Aug. 30, 2017, and lied to the dispatcher when he suggested Sterling had died of sudden infant death syndrome, prosecutors said. Chickasaw County sheriff’s deputies found the boy’s body in a bedroom separate from where Koehn, Harris and their older child slept.
The case was not one of the parents lacking adequate resources to care for their children, prosecutors have said. Koehn made $45,000 a year and had access to health insurance as a truck driver who hauled chickens from Wisconsin to Charles City, Iowa.
The state medical examiner determined the boy’s death was a homicide; his cause of death was listed as failure to provide critical care. In charging documents, a deputy said the case facts “go far beyond neglect.”
Cheyanne Harris Now
Name:
Cheyanne Renae Harris
Offender Number:
6885796
Sex:
F
Birth Date:
02/17/1997
Location:
Iowa Correctional Institution for Women
Offense:
MURDER 1ST DEGREE
TDD/SDD *:
LIFE
Commitment Date:
02/19/2019
The Death of Baby Sterling Koehn: Inside the Cheyanne Harris True Crime Case
Some true crime cases stay with you because of the violence. Others stay because of the neglect. The case of Cheyanne Harris belongs to the second category, and it remains one of the most disturbing child endangerment convictions in recent Iowa history.
On August 30, 2017, first responders walked into a small apartment in Alta Vista and found 4-month-old Sterling Koehn dead in a mechanical baby swing. He was wearing a diaper so soiled it had attracted flies, which had laid eggs that hatched into maggots. The medical examiner would later determine he died weighing barely more than at birth, after days without adequate food, water, or basic hygiene.
Both parents were charged with first-degree murder. The father, Zachary Koehn, was convicted first. Months later, Cheyanne Harris, then 21, faced her own jury. Her defense did not dispute the conditions. It argued that postpartum depression was the monster in the room.
This post reconstructs the case from charging documents, trial testimony, and sentencing reports.
Who Was Cheyanne Harris?
At the time of her arrest in October 2017, Cheyanne Harris was 20 years old, living in Chickasaw County, Iowa, with Zachary Koehn and their two children. Public records describe a young couple with limited resources, living at 304 W. Wilson in Alta Vista. Harris had given birth to Sterling Daniel Koehn on May 1, 2017.
There is no extensive public biography because Harris was not a public figure before the case. Court coverage consistently identifies her as a young mother with a history of mental health struggles, which became central to her defense. Prosecutors would later argue that whatever her struggles, the physical evidence showed a sustained, conscious pattern of ignoring a baby’s most basic needs.
The Victim: Sterling Koehn
Sterling was four months old when he died. Photos shown in court depicted a small infant with light hair. According to testimony, he had been born healthy in early May, but by late August he was severely underweight.
A babysitter who had cared for Sterling for 17 hours alongside the couple’s 2-year-old daughter told jurors he appeared underweight and already had significant diaper rash. That observation, weeks before his death, became a key data point for prosecutors arguing the neglect was not a single bad day.
The Final Weeks: 9 to 14 Days in a Swing
The core of the prosecution’s timeline came from a forensic entomologist. Investigators found Sterling in the same powered swing where he had apparently been left for an extended period. Insect activity on his body and clothing indicated he had not had a diaper change for between nine and 14 days.
Other witnesses described the same window. Prosecutors told the jury the baby had been left in the swing for 9 to 14 days, with a diaper that was never changed during that time.
During that period, police alleged, Harris took steps to muffle his cries, including placing comforters over windows in the room to block sound. The room itself was described as hot and reeking of urine when responders arrived.
August 30, 2017: The 911 Call
Zachary Koehn, who worked nights as a truck driver, called 911 around 2 p.m. He told dispatchers his son had died of sudden infant death syndrome. When EMT Toni Friedrich arrived, she found Sterling in a bedroom separate from where the parents slept.
Her testimony was stark. Sterling’s eyes were open in a blank stare. When she moved his blanket, gnats flew up. His fists were clenched and there was blood coming from his mouth.
First responders also noted a cruel contrast. Bundles of fresh, unused diapers were visible in the room, but investigators found no dirty diapers in the trash, suggesting they had simply not been used.
Cause of Death
The autopsy told a story of multiple overlapping failures. The Iowa medical examiner found:
- Severe malnutrition and dehydration. Sterling died weighing only slightly more than his birth weight.
- A severe diaper rash that had eroded skin, creating open wounds.
- E. coli bacteria from feces entering his bloodstream through those wounds, causing sepsis.
- Maggot infestation from flies attracted to the unchanged diaper.
Prosecutors summarized it for the jury: the dirty diaper attracted bugs which laid eggs that hatched into maggots, the rash caused open wounds, bacteria entered the bloodstream, and the baby died of malnutrition, starvation, and infection.
The official cause was listed as failure to provide critical care, with contributing factors of dehydration, malnutrition, and infection. The infant’s diaper had not been changed for between nine and 14 days, and as he was dying, insects laid eggs on his body that turned into maggots.
A Chickasaw County deputy wrote in the charging affidavit that the situation was far beyond neglect.
Arrests and Charges
Both parents were charged in October 2017 with first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. Iowa law allows a first-degree murder charge when a death occurs during child endangerment, even without proof of intent to kill.
Harris pleaded not guilty and maintained her innocence for more than a year while awaiting trial. Her trial date was initially set for January 2019, more than a year after the death.
The Trial of Zachary Koehn
Zachary Koehn went to trial first in December 2018. His defense strategy was to shift blame. On the stand, he testified that he had put his trust in the wrong person, pointing to Harris as the primary caregiver.
Assistant Attorney General Denise Timmins rejected that framing. She told jurors, “He let Sterling rot in that room. He left him there to die.”
The jury deliberated less than an hour before convicting Koehn of first-degree murder and child endangerment. He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Trial of Cheyanne Harris
Harris’s trial began in Le Mars, Iowa, in January 2019 after a change of venue. Prosecutors presented the same physical evidence, plus testimony about her role as the mother who was home during the day.
The state argued that Harris made conscious choices. She had access to diapers, food, and medical care, and she had been warned about Sterling’s condition by the babysitter. The prolonged nature of the neglect, 9 to 14 days without a change, supported the charge of murder under Iowa’s felony-murder rule for child endangerment.
The defense, led by public defender Nicole Watt, did not claim Harris was a perfect mother. Instead, Watt argued the death was not intentional but the result of untreated postpartum depression for which Harris had been self-medicating.
“The monster in this case is mental health. The monster in this case is depression,” Watt told the jury, according to the Des Moines Register.
Jurors deliberated for more than five hours, significantly longer than in Koehn’s case. On January 16, 2019, they returned guilty verdicts on both counts: first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death.
Sentencing
On February 19, 2019, Harris was sentenced in Chickasaw County District Court. Iowa mandates life without parole for first-degree murder, so the judge had no discretion.
Harris, then 21, sat quietly as the sentence was read. No family members were present for her. One local resident, Kim Theis, attended wearing a ribbon to honor Sterling and later told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, “I don’t understand how she can sit emotionless like that.”
The sentence matched her co-defendant’s. Both parents will spend the rest of their lives in Iowa prisons without the possibility of parole.
Appeals
Harris appealed her conviction, arguing the trial court erred by not allowing her to present a full diminished responsibility defense based on mental health. The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, finding insufficient evidence to support the defense and noting that the state’s theory under the felony-murder rule did not require specific intent to kill.
The ruling summarized her conviction as stemming from a child’s death from severe malnutrition and infection, and upheld the life sentence.
Life After Conviction
Since 2019, Harris has been incarcerated at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. In 2020, Court TV reported that Harris claimed she was being bullied by other inmates because of the nature of her crime, a common occurrence for people convicted of child deaths.
Neither parent has expressed public remorse in court transcripts released to media. Both continue to serve life sentences, and Sterling is buried in Chickasaw County.
Final Thoughts
Cheyanne Harris is not a serial killer or a mastermind. Her case is quieter, and in many ways harder to sit with, because it is about absence rather than action. A baby needed to be fed, cleaned, held, and taken to a doctor. For days, those things did not happen.
The jury’s verdict, and the life sentence that followed, reflected Iowa’s view that such absence, when prolonged and willful, is legally indistinguishable from murder. Whether you see this as justice for Sterling or as a tragedy compounded by untreated mental illness, the facts remain fixed in the court record: a 4-month-old died alone in a swing, in a hot room, in a diaper that had not been changed in up to two weeks.
True crime often looks for monsters. In Alta Vista, the prosecution and defense agreed on one word, but disagreed on its meaning. For the defense, the monster was depression. For the state, it was the choice to let a child rot. The jury chose the state’s interpretation, and Cheyanne Harris’s name became permanently linked to one of Iowa’s most heartbreaking child death cases.
