Disturbing video footage shows an Ohio mother calmly trying to deceive police about discovering her deceased baby girl in her crib, initially concealing that she had abandoned her daughter to embark on a tropical getaway.
The footage, obtained by Law&Crime, shows 32-year-old Kristel Candelario facing interrogation after her 16-month-old daughter, Jailyn, was discovered dead from starvation, following months of neglect.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Candelario called 911 to her home in the 3100 block of West 97th Street in Cleveland in June 2023, and said she found the victim unresponsive in her playpen.
Investigators said the victim was “extremely dehydrated” and the playpen had “soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces.”
An autopsy performed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office indicated that Jailyn died of starvation and severe dehydration.
Caught on police bodycam footage, the mother, now sentenced to life imprisonment, was seen falsely telling the responding officers that her daughter had been vomiting throughout June 2023, with the defendant claiming she was at home with the victim.
Candelario was actually on a Puerto Rican beach, taking photos and vacationing.
“She was with no food, she was refusing,” Candelario said.
“She was refusing, maybe because she didn’t eat two days before,’ she told an officer who asked how the toddler had been eating during the week. “But that’s why I was scared, because I say, oh my God we have to go to the hospital because she doesn’t eat anything.”
“Last night she was crying a lot. And I see one moment, when I was taking a shower, she was screaming like ‘Aaah’, I don’t know, probably she get in pain, maybe…I pick her up this morning and she look really, like dry.”
Candelario ultimately admitted to leaving her daughter alone while she vacationed for 10 days, from June 8, 2023, to June 16, 2023. By her own admission, she revealed she left the victim “at home, all alone and unattended,” according to court documents.
Last month, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley said Candelario took a plea deal, which removed a felonious assault and additional murder charges, but an aggravated murder charge and an endangering the life of a child remained.
The following month, a Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas handed down sentencing, while admonishing the defendant for her unimaginable behavior.
“Leaving your baby — terrified, alone, unprotected — to suffer the most gruesome death imaginable with no food, no water, no protection, and lying in her own feces,” Judge Brendan J. Sheehan said during sentencing last month.
“The evidence I’ve witnessed before this court shows that you simply chose not to be there [for your daughter] simply because you wanted to have fun. You decided you needed a vacation, and what followed was absolute depravity.”
Candelario will have no chance at parole, the judge said, after handing down a life sentence behind bars.
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[Feature Photo: Jailyn/Handout via Telemundo]
