Judge invokes mom’s heinous crime while sentencing her for starving baby to death while she vacationed for 10 days
The Ohio mom who left her 16-month-old daughter to starve to death in a soiled playpen while she went on a 10-day vacation has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kristel Candelario, 32, committed “the ultimate betrayal” by abandoning daughter Jailyn without food or water last summer so she could jet off to Detroit and Puerto Rico, a judge told her Monday.
“Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement, so too you should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom,” County Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan Sheehan told the mom.
“The only difference will be, the prison will at least feed you and give you liquid that you denied her.”
When given a chance to speak, Candelario, who claimed to have struggled with depression and other mental health issues, said she has prayed daily for forgiveness.
“There’s so much pain that I have in regards to the loss of my baby, Jailyn,” she said in court.
“I’m extremely hurt about everything that happened. I am not trying to justify my actions, but nobody knew how much I was suffering and what I was going through,” she said.
“God and my daughter have forgiven me,” she claimed.
More on the mom who left her baby at home to go on vacation
- Mom who went on 10-day beach vacay as tot starved to death in playpen calmly lies to cops, blames girl for not eating in newly revealed video
- Judge invokes mom’s heinous crime while sentencing her for starving baby to death while she vacationed for 10 days
- Mom pleads guilty to murder for leaving toddler home alone to go on 10-day vacation: ‘Truly unimaginable’
- 16-month-old girl dies after Ohio mom leaves her home alone to go on vacation in Puerto Rico for over a week: cops
Candelario pleaded guilty last month to aggravated murder and child endangerment as part of a plea deal dropping two additional murder counts and a felonious assault charge in a case that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley described as “truly unimaginable.”
Candelario’s parents spoke in their daughter’s defense at her sentencing.
“My heart is ripped apart in 1,000 pieces,” the woman’s mother said. “I am here to tell the world that my daughter came from a home where there were values, beliefs, emotions, warmth. Where the most important thing was family.”
She added that Candelario’s “emotional health was affected on more than one occasion” and that her “depression and anxiety ended up consuming her.”
Candelario’s father said that even though he is “shocked by everything that happened,” he is still giving “moral and spiritual support” to his “beloved daughter.”
“I ask for compassion, understanding and mercy,” he said.
Candelario left her toddler in their Cleveland home in June 2023 without any supervision so she could travel solo.
A photo taken three days into her tropical getaway showed the mom smiling on a sandy Puerto Rican beach, even as her daughter was dying at home.
“The time that is enjoyed is the true time lived,” Candelario breezily wrote in a caption accompanying the snap she shared on Facebook.
When Candelario returned 10 days later, she found Jailyn not breathing and called 911.
The child was pronounced dead by paramedics on the spot.
The tot’s Pack-N-Play pen where she spent the final agonizing days of her short life “consisted of soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces,” an affidavit stated.
An autopsy found that Jailyn had died of starvation and severe dehydration.
In announcing her guilty plea in February, O’Malley slammed Candelario’s “selfish decisions” and said the case “will stick with me for many years to come.”
With Post wires
