A newly-released police report indicated that slain Ohio girl Aniya Day was emaciated and burned when officers found her unresponsive at her Euclid home on March 11.
WJW reported that responding police described the 4-year-old’s neck as “very small and emaciated, how her fingers were so thin that they could see her joints, and that they could see every bone in her ribs. Investigators also wrote that Day had burns on her feet and legs and her eye was bruised and nearly swollen shut.
Day died last Sunday of a stroke caused by blunt impacts to her head, according to the Cleveland Scene. Authorities wrote that malnutrition also played a role in the little girl’s death.
The girl’s mother, Sierra Day, and her mother’s boyfriend, Deonte Lewis, are charged with aggravated murder.
Tamika Robinson, the day care owner who took control of the company in 2017, contacted police on May 18, 2017, after reportedly finding blood coming from Aniya’s ear. It was then that the new owner presented officers with 13 other reports of abuse that the day care documented, which went as far back as September 2015—and were as recent as three days before Robinson called police.
At the time, Sierra allegedly accused the day care of causing the injuries and claimed that Aniya often lies.
Since then, the girl’s father has called for an investigation into Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services, accusing the agency of failing to take his daughter out of the Euclid home despite receiving three calls last year to investigate abuse.
“We want [the agency] held accountable,” Mickhal Garrett said during a rally aimed at doing just that.
“They failed me. They failed all of us. Nobody should have to go through what we went through.”
According to WEWS, Garrett also wrote a letter to Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court in December 2017 begging the court for full custody on Aniya. At the time, he claimed that he was cut off from his daughter but that relatives believed she was being abused.
“I truly, truly, truly feel as though our daughter is being abused at home physically/mentally and that her life could possibly be in danger,” Garrett wrote, according to the news station.
The father said he became concerned in September 2017, when he noticed bruises and scars on his daughter. Sierra allegedly stopped him from seeing his daughter after he confronted her about the injuries.
Garrett said, “After trying to communicate with Sierra about our daughter’s wounds is when Ms. Day began to tell me false stories, reject all my phone calls, my visitation and all quality time with our daughter.”
Meanwhile, Sierra and Lewis both remain jailed on $1 million bond.
[Featured Image: Aniya Day, Mickhal Garrett/WEWS]
