The parents of a 2-year-old Indiana girl are facing multiple charges after the toddler was found dead in a closet where temperatures reached 109 degrees.
Berne Police officers responded to a call about a death on November 27 and found a trashy apartment littered with garbage that made it difficult to navigate, WANE reported. They found cockroaches throughout the home and a pot on the stove that contained mold.
The dead child was found in a closet in the bedroom, which her parents said was where she slept. The toddler was lying in a crib on a soiled mattress in a soiled diaper, WPTA said. Her body was discolored, and officers measured the temperature in the closet at between 85 and 109 degrees, with the highest readings coming from the girl’s body. The also found feces in a corner of the closet.
An autopsy later determined the child died of hyperthermia.
According to the court documents, the child’s mother, 21 year-old Sintia Perez, said that she put the little girl to bed at 7 p.m. on November 26 and turned cranked a space heater nearly all the way up. Perez said she woke up at 12:30 p.m. the next day, but neither she nor the child’s father, 23-year-old Jace Hirschy, checked on the toddler until after 3 p.m. when they found her dead.
Perez and Hirschy were charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death and two counts of neglect of a dependent, according to WANE. Two other children in the home, a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, were taken into custody by the state Department of Child Services. They both had lice.
Perez and Hirschy made their first appearance in court on Wednesday and are expected back for a pretrial conference on February 14, 2025.
