Yakima police arrest woman after finding dead baby, starved toddler in home

( Seattle Times )

A Yakima woman has been arrested after police found a dead infant and malnourished toddler in a squalid apartment Tuesday.

The 20-year-old woman is being held in the Yakima County jail in lieu of $25,000 bail that was set during a court hearing Wednesday afternoon. The bail covers both the current case and a 2023 case involving animal cruelty that prosecutors filed.

The Yakima Herald-Republic typically does not publish defendants’ names prior to the filing of formal charges.

Yakima police went to an apartment in the 300 block of North Fourth Avenue around 7:25 a.m. for a welfare check after a woman called and told police that her 7-month-old child was possibly dead in the apartment.

In the 911 call, the suspect said she was leaving and was going to kill herself.

After first knocking, officers went into the unlocked apartment and heard a child crying. They found a 2-year-old girl in a crib and a dead baby in a bassinet, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Paramedics pronounced the baby dead at the scene. Police said it appeared the baby had been dead for some time and both children had been neglected, the affidavit said.

The baby died of severe dehydration, Chief Yakima County Deputy Coroner Marshall Slight said following a Wednesday morning autopsy. Her death has been ruled as negligent homicide.

The toddler was taken to a local hospital, where doctors found signs of malnourishment and neglect, the affidavit said. State Child Protective Services was alerted and was making contact with family members, the affidavit said.

Officers found the floors of the apartment were littered with trash and old food, with multiple soiled diapers in the children’s room. There was a strong foul odor in the air. They also found several cats that appeared to have been neglected, the affidavit said.

A neighbor reportedly said she knew the suspect for two years, and only knew of her, a man and a baby in the apartment. She said the last time she saw the suspect was two days earlier, and had not seen the man in a week, nor had she heard the baby crying for a week, the affidavit said.

Police later found the woman and booked her into the Yakima County jail on suspicion of first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment and family abandonment.

Bail discussion

During a preliminary appearance hearing Wednesday afternoon in Yakima County Superior Court , Deputy Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Diane Hehir asked for a total of $500,000 for the current case as well as the 2023 case, where she said one animal was injured and another died.

“The state believes that there are no combination of conditions combined with (releasing her on her own recognizance) that are appropriate,” Hehir said, describing the case as “very serious and tragic circumstances.”

Hehir said there were concerns for the safety of all who were involved in the case.

Jewel Christensen, a public defender representing defendants during preliminary appearance, said a half-million bail was essentially a “no-bail hold” because of the suspect’s limited financial resources, pointing out that her last job was working at a hamburger restaurant near Union Gap.

And, Christensen said, there were people who were supposed to have helped the woman, but didn’t follow through and let her down.

“I sit here as a woman knowing that we live in a society that emphasizes the importance of birth, birth, birth, but we do nothing to help those mothers who give birth to those children after the fact,” Christensen said. “We sit here and let mothers struggle to put food on the table, to get jobs and to make their families whole.”

Christen proposed $10,000 bail on each case for a total of $20,000, recognizing the suspect’s financial situation and the seriousness of the case.

Judge Jeffery Swan said the case has the potential for provoking an emotional response in the community but said as a judge he needed to set those aside as he determined an appropriate bail.

Balancing the needs for safety of those involved with the suspect’s financial state, Swan set $20,000 bail on the child neglect case, with $5,000 for other case.

Should she post bail, Swan said she would be under court supervision and would have to refrain from using drugs.