A 16-month-old girl is dead after her mother left her alone in their Cleveland home for about 10 days to go on an island vacation, according to police and reports.
Kristel Candelario, 31, is facing a murder charge after the child wasn’t taken care of for more than a week, police said in a news release last Thursday. The 16-month-old was pronounced dead when first responders arrived at the home on June 16, authorities said.
Candelario was on a trip to Puerto Rico and Detroit while the baby was left on her own inside the home, a police affidavit obtained by NBC News states.
The mother allegedly fessed up to police she left her daughter, Jailyn, “at home, all alone and unattended,” according to the affidavit.
Candelario said when she got home, her child was “extremely dehydrated,” the affidavit states.
The baby’s pen “consisted of soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces,” the affidavit states.
A neighbor told WEWS that this wasn’t the first time Candelario left her baby alone in the home.
“We keep telling her not to leave her by herself, not just me, my friend across the street too, but she always leave her by herself,” the neighbor said.
Candelario lives in the house with her two daughters and her parents, but recently her parents took Candelario’s oldest daughter with them on vacation, neighbors said.
“There were so many people here; she could have knocked on any of our doors and asked us to take Jailyn,” another neighbor told the station.
The child’s body was moved to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office for further examination as the investigation is ongoing, police said.
