Teresa Biswanath (Washington County District Attorney’s Office).
An unlicensed “in-home” day care worker in Oregon is heading to prison for killing an 11-month-old baby she was supposed to be watching. Prosecutors said she “squeezed the victim into a swaddle much too small for his size” and then placed him facedown on a bed with a pacifier in his mouth, leading to his death.
Teresa Biswanath, of Washington County, was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of post-release supervision for criminally negligent homicide, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release. She is prohibited from ever operating a licensed child care center again and was ordered to have no contact with the victim’s family, the release says.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
Jurors found Biswanath guilty on April 30 for the child’s 2022 death. She was running an “unlicensed in-home daycare” at the time and told police she followed similar policies as ones from her previous place of employment, a “well-known childcare center” in the area that “precluded the practice of infant swaddling,” according to the DA’s office.
“On the day of the child’s death, the defendant was caring for five children, including the victim,” the office says in its release. “During nap time, the defendant squeezed the victim into a swaddle much too small for his size, one designed for newborns less than three months old who could not roll over or crawl as he could. She used straps to bind the child’s arms and put a pacifier with a 6-inch stuffed animal attached into his mouth.”
Prosecutors say Biswanath initially tried to get the child to fall asleep in the room where the other children were. She then took him to a bedroom on the second floor of the home and placed him “facedown on the bed with his arms constrained by the swaddle,” according to the DA’s office.
“The victim was upstairs for at least one hour as the defendant was in and out of the bedroom,” the office says. “The defendant left to check on the other children and when she returned to the upstairs room, she found the victim blue and unresponsive. She attempted to perform CPR while her husband called an ambulance. First responders were unable to revive the child.”
