32-year-old Kristel Candelario was sentenced to life in prison after abandoning her baby for 10 days to go on vacation, causing him to die of starvation and dehydration.
Prosecutors said he left the toddler alone in a high chair at their home in Cleveland, Ohio, in June while she traveled to Detroit and Puerto Rico.
When she returned from her trip, 16-month-old Jailyn was unresponsive and called the police. She changed her child's clothes before emergency services arrived and pronounced her dead a short time later.
The judge also faulted her for showing no sign of remorse
The toddler was "extremely dehydrated" at the time of his death, prosecutors said, and medical examiners found he died of starvation and dehydration. She weighed 13 pounds — about seven pounds less than what was recorded at her last doctor's visit about two months earlier — Cuyahoga County Deputy Coroner Elizabeth Mooney said in court Monday.
“You have committed the supreme act of treason…”
County Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan Sheehan said the toddler's death was "not just an oversight" and told Candelario she had plenty of opportunities to intervene and save her daughter's life.
"You have committed the supreme act of treason, leaving your baby terrified, alone, unprotected, to suffer what I have heard was the most horrible death imaginable, without food, without water, without protection," the judge said and also charged the 32-year-old that she showed "no remorse," according to the Washington Post.
In court Monday, she compared Candelario's life sentence to the incarceration her daughter must have endured before her death.
"The only difference will be that the prison will at least feed you and give you fluids that you refused," he said.
Kristel Candelario, 32, whose toddler died after she left her at home to go on a 10-day vacation last summer has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
https://t.co/eustSKaN2v- The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 19, 2024
Candelario also has an older daughter. It is unclear where she was during her mother's June vacation.
"I'm not trying to justify my actions..."
Her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At her sentencing, he said Candelario suffered from depression and mental health issues, although she was found competent to stand trial.
"There is no excuse for her actions," he said, speaking of the "absolutely worst parenting imaginable." He hinted that the treatment he received for mental and physical problems before June was inadequate.
Candelario addressed the judge and court Monday, saying Jailyn's death has caused her "so much pain" and that she hopes her parents and daughter can forgive her.
"I'm not trying to justify my actions, but nobody knew how much I suffered and what I was going through," he said, speaking through a Spanish interpreter.