Left: Denise Balbaneda (Atascosa County Sheriff). Center: Miranda Sipps (Facebook/Denise Balbaneda). Right: Gerald Gonzales (Atascosa County Sheriff).
The parents of a Texas cheerleader who died after they allegedly tried to cure her life-threatening injuries with smoothies will face a jury trial.
Denise Balbaneda, 36, and Gerald Gonzalez, 40, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of injury to a child after their daughter, 12-year-old Miranda Sipps, died on Aug. 12 after succumbing to injuries she sustained days earlier. According to the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office, Balbaneda, the girl’s mother, and Gonzalez, her stepfather, “failed to seek medical assistance for the girl, even though she was mentally and physically incapacitated and non-responsive.”
Instead, they allegedly attempted to nurse her back to health with smoothies and vitamins despite her reported inability to swallow while in an unconscious state.
Docket records showed that both Balbaneda and Gonzalez, who were arrested in August, appeared in court on Dec. 4 and were set for a jury trial on Feb. 3. Neither defendant had an attorney on record. They were both arrested on Aug. 13 and released on $200,000 bond.
While scant details have been released concerning the injuries that led up to Miranda’s death, Atascosa County Sheriff David Soward said during a press conference following the arrests that Miranda had suffered “life-threatening injuries” that left her in an unconscious state. He added, “She was not talking, she basically could flutter her eyes and move her hands a little bit. Over a four-day period, they had her laying on a pallet in the house.”
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Soward laid out how Balbaneda and Gonzales “basically confessed” that they failed to seek medical care for their daughter in order to avoid drawing negative attention. Instead of taking their unconscious daughter to the hospital, however, they got her supplemental oxygen and tried to give her “smoothies,” vitamins, and supplements despite her inability to swallow.
Once Miranda was in respiratory distress, Balbaneda finally called 911. The preteen was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy was conducted, but a report has not been released yet.
