By our Reporter
A 32-year-old American woman who went on a 10-day vacation and left her 16-month-old daughter at their home to starve to death has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The convict, identified as Kristel Candelario, was sentenced on Monday, March 18, by a state courthouse in Cleveland.
The sentencing comes after Candelario entered guilty pleas in February for one count of aggravated murder in connection with the death of her toddler and one count of endangering children, according to online Cuyahoga County court records.
The judge who oversaw Candelario’s case, Brendan Sheehan, said traveling out of state while leaving a toddler home alone without food was “the ultimate betrayal” that deserved one of the harshest legal punishments available.
“Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement, so you too should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom. The only difference will be that the prison will at least feed you and give you liquid that you denied her,” Sheehan said during Candelario’s sentencing hearing.
Candelario left her 16-month-old daughter unattended at her Cleveland home from June 6 to June 16, 2023 and went on a vacation to Detroit and Puerto Rico, the prosecutor’s office added in its release.
A few days into the trip, the New York Post reported, Candelario went on social media and posted a photo of herself smiling, barefoot and in a bathing suit on a beach. The image’s caption read: “The time that is enjoyed is the true time lived.”
When she returned to the residence at around 8:00 a.m., she found her daughter unresponsive and called the police, who later declared the toddler deceased at the scene. Jailyn was discovered “in a Pack-N-Play pen on a liner soiled with urine and feces with soiled blankets,” according to the release.
The toddler died of starvation and severe dehydration from pediatric neglect.