Last February, Kristel Candelario, a 32-year-old mother, pleaded guilty to aggravated murder in the death of her 16-month-old daughter, Jailyn Candelario. Justice proved that the little girl was abandoned at her home in Cleveland, Ohio for more than a week, causing her death from malnutrition.
Now, Candelario was sentenced to life in prison, after the autopsy performed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that the cause of death was starvation and severe dehydration. “The 16-month-old girl was extremely dehydrated at the time of her death,” the prosecutor’s office detailed.
The woman admitted that she left her daughter alone and without care inside the house from June 8 to June 16, 2023, a period during which she was supposedly on vacation in Puerto Rico and Detroit.
Even on social networks, Candelario shared a photo on a beach in Puerto Rico on Facebook, while her daughter was dying of hunger, abandoned in her home in the United States.
According to the Police, after arriving home, the woman found the girl “wrapped in dirty blankets” with feces and urine, but before calling 911, she changed her clothes and then asked for help.
However, the investigation showed that Jailyn died of starvation and severe dehydration due to neglect, Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth Mooney said at the sentencing hearing.
The girl weighed 13 pounds, which is a 7-pound decrease since her last doctor visit. less than two months before his death, the coroner added.
Cuyahoga prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley said Jailyn was “a beautiful girl who was taken from this world because of her mother’s unimaginable selfishness.”
For his part, Candelario, who had suffered from depression, said in court “every day I ask for forgiveness from God and from my daughter Jailyn.”
“This case is one of those truly unimaginable cases that will stay with me for many years to come,” said Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley.
The woman was born on September 11, 1991 in Guayaquil, but several years ago she migrated to the United States, where she is recent. In the house he lived with his parents and his eldest daughter, who had also gone on vacation.
The woman’s neighbors reported that it was not the first time she left her daughter alone. One woman said Candelario asked her to babysit her daughter for a weekend, but then she disappeared for several weeks.
According to media in Ecuador, Henry García, father of the minor, met Kristel through Facebook and they maintained their relationship at a distance because she lived in the United States and he in Ecuador.
The woman notified Henry of her pregnancy after the two took a trip to the Dominican Republic.
The Ecuadorian never knew his daughter and found out about her death while reading the news. Now, he begs the United States authorities to grant him a humanitarian visa to recover little Jailyn’s body.
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