An Indiana couple was arrested last week, months after their 4-month-old daughter died in March.
According to WTTK, Indianapolis police police found Iyari Washington unresponsive, emaciated, and with a swollen stomach. Her mother and father Tiera Crute, 25, and Daron Washington, 30, gave conflicting accounts of who found their daughter struggling to breathe on the day she died.
Crute reportedly claimed she gave her daughter a bottle until she fell asleep in her arms. Crute said it was about 30 minutes after the feeding that she noticed her daughter was not breathing, the Indianapolis Star.
Relatives told WTTK that the baby, who was born prematurely, had breathing issues and she was not expected to live a month.
Meanwhile, Daron Washington allegedly told police that his daughter fell asleep on his bed and was making fussing sounds in the middle of the night. He said he assumed she was OK because she stopped making sounds after he put a pacifier in her mouth. He claimed it was the next morning when he realized she was not breathing and did not have a pulse, according to the Indianapolis Star.
An autopsy determined that Iyari Washington weighed 7.1 pounds when she died. Medical records indicated that she was gaining 32 grams per day for the two weeks she was in the NICU, but doctors believe she only gained 7.9 grams a day after she was discharged from the hospital, according to the Indianapolis Start.
Additionally, cops reportedly found no formulas, baby bottles, or cribs in the parents’ home.
Though Crute and Washington are charged with neglect, their daughter’s cause of death is still undetermined. The couple remains jailed on $100,000 bonds.
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[Featured image: Iyari Washington/Handout]
