Parents often will rely to their family relatives to take care of their children and this is a practice that every couple uses it from time to time. In most of the cases everything goes well and the children are happy to spend time with the family relatives, but there are cases that don’t go as expected and they even might end up fatal, like the case today.
According to police report, one such a case happened in Indiana in August when a couple reported their eleven-month-old baby missing after they left it with a family a member to take care of the child over the weekend.
The infant’s parents, identified as the Kenneth L. and Tiffany C., left their 11-month-old girl with a family member, who was identified as the 37-year-old Justin M., on Friday so they “could have a break” but he hadn’t returned her Sunday.
Justin offered himself to take care of the little girl Mercedes over the weekend when Kenneth called Justin asking him to if he could find him synthetic marijuana and to provide some other drugs. Then Kenneth told him how he and his wife are having hard times looking over Mercedes all the time, every day.
But Justin’s recollection of the days he cared for Mercedes “changed several times,” and he told investigators he left the baby with a woman at a motel where her parents had been staying. However, investigators were able to determine these claims were not true.
In one occasion, the investigators pushed Justin to let them what happened and he was forced to explain the investigators everything, leading them to a wooded area out of town where they found Mercedes’ dead body dumped on the ground three days later.
According to Justin’s latest statement, the girl was already for some reason when he woke up at home Saturday morning, claiming he didn’t hurt the girl in any way. He was afraid that he will be charged with murder and he decided to dump the body instead of taking the baby girl in hospital.
As soon as the investigators found the body, they took it to the nearest hospital for examination. The initial results of the autopsy were not ready yet so the cause of the dead can’t be confirmed.
According to police, both the parents and the family relative who “was taking care” of the baby girl will be charged and may spend many years in prison if found guilty for the fatal incident.
Mercedes’ parents have been charged with neglect of a dependent after police said they had been “uncooperative” during the search for their child. According to the affidavit, both parents were difficult to find after reporting their daughter missing.
Asked whether her parents knew what happened to Mercedes, Chipman said “there’s no proof, evidence whatsoever that they knew the ultimate outcome.”
This case is just another proof among many others showing every parent how important is to know who you will leave your children with regardless of the fact if they are family members, close friends or neighbors.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.