Good Lord - how could anyone do that?
A judge found that Kristel Candelario had committed “the ultimate act of betrayal” when she left her 16-month-old daughter alone at home, where she died from starvation and severe dehydration.
www.yahoo.com
A Cleveland woman who pleaded guilty to aggravated murder after leaving her toddler home alone in a playpen while she went on a 10-day vacation was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole.
A judge found that Kristel Candelario, 32, had committed “the ultimate act of betrayal” when she left her 16-month-old daughter, Jailyn Candelario, in a playpen, “trapped in a tiny prison,” while she traveled to Puerto Rico and Detroit last June.
“Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement, so too you should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom,” Judge Brendan Sheehan told Candelario in handing down the sentence.
Forensic pathologist Elizabeth Mooney determined Jailyn died from starvation and severe dehydration due to pediatric neglect and ruled Jailyn’s death a homicide.
Prosecutors said Candelario redressed her daughter in clean clothes before first responders arrived, but Mooney said in court that she found feces on Jailyn’s hands and feet, under her fingernails and on her mouth and teeth — which investigators said they initially believed was dirt.
Mooney’s voice quivered as she described the “terrifying” circumstances of the toddler’s death, saying Jailyn experienced extreme and prolonged suffering for as long as a week before she died.
www.foxnews.com
