Background: 1254 Office Park Road, West Des Moines, Iowa where Kayla Bevar’s toddler drowned (Google Maps). Inset: Kayla Bevar (Polk County Jail).
A 21-year-old Iowa woman was charged with child endangerment resulting in death after her toddler son drowned in the bathtub.
Kayla Bevar was arrested on Dec. 4 following an investigation into the drowning death of her 20-month-old son. An announcement posted to the West Des Moines Police Department website said that emergency services responded to a call at Bevar’s home at about 7 p.m. on the night of Oct. 31. Court documents stated that Bevar made the call when she woke up and found her son floating in the water. He was taken to the hospital but was pronounced dead.
According to court filings, Bevar told police that on the night of the drowning, she started the boy’s bath at 6:30 p.m. and left the room while the drain was plugged and the water filled the tub. She reportedly claimed that she checked on her son “periodically” while he was in the tub before she fell asleep. She later admitted to investigators that she “routinely and negligently” left her baby son in a filled bathtub for “five-minute increments, unattended.”
When Bevar found her son, he was “floating on his side” and unconscious as the tub overflowed.
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In addition to what the police called a “known act of negligence,” they reported that the state of the apartment where Bevar lived with her son “had spoiled food and trash all over the floors” and that there were “diapers containing exposed fecal matter in the bathroom.” They also found no food in the apartment suitable for a toddler and “no apparent children[‘s] clothing.”
Bevar was charged with two felonies — child endangerment resulting in death and neglect or abandonment of a dependent person. She remains in custody at the Polk County Jail on $1 million cash bail.
