Honk News (Dayton, OH) – An Ohio court has handed down a sentence to the father of a 3-year-old girl who was discovered struggling to breathe in a pest-ridden apartment, according to prosecutors.
A 29-year-old man from Fairborn received a four-year prison sentence on Jan. 29, according to a release from Greene County prosecutors. This follows the father’s guilty plea in November for endangering a child and tampering with evidence in what prosecutors described as a “case of extreme child abuse.”
Authorities responded to an apartment on January 8, 2024, after a 911 call reported that a child was struggling to breathe, as stated by prosecutors. When first responders arrived, there was no response at the door, according to prosecutors.
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Upon entering the apartment, officers discovered a space that was “covered in filth” and riddled with a “litany of insect infestations” while searching for the toddler. According to prosecutors, the girl was discovered on the floor beside the bed, clad only in a soiled diaper.
“Officers approached the child and determined, after the child gasped for air, that she was, in fact, alive,” officials said in the release. The girl, covered in insect bites, was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and was later placed in the intensive care unit.
Officials reported that doctors discovered she was “extremely malnourished” and weighed just 16 pounds. The mother of the child has been taken into custody and confessed to being the one who called 911, although she used an alias, according to prosecutors.
According to prosecutors, she mentioned that she had taken her child to the doctor just once.
A 26-year-old mother received a prison sentence ranging from seven to 10.5 years on July 25 after entering a guilty plea for felonious assault, as stated in a news release from the Greene County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in July. Officials reported that the father, despite not having custody of the child, had visited the home multiple times before police assessed the condition of the apartment.
“Any adult who walked into that house and saw that child should have reported it immediately. As the biological father, (the man) had both a moral and a legal responsibility to care for the victim and chose to do nothing,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors reported that the child spent several weeks in the hospital.
Fairborn is located approximately 13 miles to the northeast of Dayton.