but how do you explain this guy’s cohort saying he did it?
IF (this is a big if) it was the mom and the kid was getting pressure, it’s possible he gave false information to save his own butt.
(I’m not saying this happened, just a possible scenario)
I think the kid said at one point that he did it, but that he had been hired by her to do it or at least to give a plausible circumstance in which the baby could have been shot “by accident.”
Remember, none of the people involved in this are rocket scientists. Low level criminals like this always think they’re going to get away with the most insane, transparent stuff. And they also do it for very cheap: think of all the people you read about getting arrested for trying to hire a hit-man to get rid of wifey or hubby...for $500 (or in one case that I remember reading, for the odd sum of $150).
So while I don’t know enough about the case to say that this is what happened, it certainly is possible. In any case, the end result was terrible.