Ohio Mother Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder After Leaving Toddler Home Alone to Go on Vacation

An Ohio mother has been sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for leaving her 16-month-old daughter home alone to die while she went on a vacation for ten days.

Kristel Candelario, 32, pled guilty to murdering her daughter and said in a sentencing hearing on Monday that “God and my daughter have forgiven me,” Fox News reported. Prosecutors said Candelario left her daughter Jailyn “alone and unattended” in a playpen at her home in Cleveland on June 6, 2023, to travel to Detroit and Puerto Rico.

“Upon returning, Candelario found Jailyn unresponsive and called the police. The Cleveland Division of Police and the Cleveland Division of Fire responded to the scene and Jailyn was pronounced deceased,” the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

The Cleveland Police Department’s Homicide Unit found that Jailyn 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,” the office added.

“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,” County Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan Sheehan told Candelario. “The only difference will be, the prison will at least feed you and give you liquid that you denied her.”

After sentencing, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said, “The thought of going on vacation for ten days and leaving your child to starve to death in her Pack-N-Play is a new low in parental care.”

“Candelario pleaded guilty in February to one count of aggravated murder and one count of endangering children,” the Fox report noted.

According to the Associated Press, Candelario has struggled with depression and other mental health issues and said she has prayed daily for forgiveness.

“There’s so much pain that I have in regards to the loss of my baby, Jailyn,” she said. “I’m extremely hurt about everything that happened. I am not trying to justify my actions, but nobody knew how much I was suffering and what I was going through … God and my daughter have forgiven me.”