Toddler left alone dies while mom is on 10-day vacation, officials say. Mother sentenced
An Ohio mother who left her 16-month-old daughter home alone for 10 days so she could go on vacation, ultimately resulting in the toddler’s death, has been sentenced, officials say.
Cleveland resident Kristel Candelario, 32, was sentenced Monday, March 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of her daughter, Jailyn, according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley.
Candelario pleaded guilty Feb. 22 to one count of aggravated murder and one count of endangering children, McClatchy News reported.
Canderlario left her daughter home alone from June 6 to June 16 while she vacationed in Puerto Rico and Detroit, officials said.
The toddler was extremely dehydrated at the time of death and “was discovered in a Pack-N-Play pen on a liner soiled with urine and feces with soiled blankets,” according to O’Malley.
“You decided you needed a vacation and what followed was absolute depravity,” Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan J. Sheehan said during the sentencing hearing.
“You committed the ultimate act of betrayal, leaving your baby terrified, alone, unprotected, to suffer what I heard was the most gruesome death imaginable with no food, no water, no protection and lying in her own feces,” the judge told Candelario.
While admonishing Candelario, the judge delivered the life sentence.
“Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement until she died, so, too, you should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom,” Sheehan said.
“The only difference will be that prison will at least feed you and give you liquids that you denied her,” he added.
McClatchy News reached out to Candelario’s attorneys for comment March 18 but did not receive an immediate response.
“God and my daughter have forgiven me,” Candelario told the court in a statement made prior to her sentencing.
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