An Ohio mom in her thirties left her 16-month-old toddler home alone for ten days so she could go on a romp on vacation. When 31-year-old Kristel Candelario returned from her trip to Detroit, Michigan, and Puerto Rico, she found her baby dead in her playpen. She later admitted to investigators that she left her tiny baby “at home, all alone and unattended” while she went on the vacation of a lifetime for ten days.
Now, Kristel Candelario has been arrested and charged with the murder of her baby daughter, Jailyn, who died on June 18, 2023. The inattentive Ohio mom returned to her Cleveland home along West 97th Street on Friday, June 16, 2023, and found her sixteen-month-old toddler unresponsive in her playpen.
Mom spoke to police investigators through an interpreter and confessed that she left the child “all alone” while she traveled across the United States and to Puerto Rico for a vacation. When she finally did return home from her travels, Candelario found her daughter to be “extremely dehydrated,” per the police affidavit of her arrest.
Authorities who investigated the murder found that the playpen where the baby had been left was dirty beyond compare. The child had been found dead atop “soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces” after spending ten days without any parental supervision or care from anyone.
The Ohio mom called emergency services upon finding her child unresponsive. When first responders arrived at the Cleveland home, they declared the sixteen-month-old toddler to be dead upon arrival.
Authorities do not know why Candelario did not ask someone to watch after her child while she went traveling to the Caribbean. Instead, she never made any arrangements for someone to check on her daughter while she was away from her home in Cleveland.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office took a close look at Jailyn’s case. They found that there were “no signs of trauma” on the toddler but that her death was caused by being left alone without care for ten days. Because the child did not have any food or water, or clean linens, she expired in her playpen.
People reported that neighbors were horrified by the news. Many of them had helped Candelario watch the child in the past and wondered why she hadn’t asked anyone to look after her little one while she was away from home on her trip.
A thirteen-year-old neighbor said the toddler was “amazing and really adorable.”
“Jailyn really didn’t deserve what happened to her,” they said. “I miss her a lot.”
Another community member remembered Jailyn as a child who was “always happy” and never had a frown on her face.
The person said, “Jailyn, she was a happy baby, always smiling, always curious about stuff. She was a wonderful, wonderful baby.”
One person familiar with Candelario’s behavior said this was not the first time she left her baby home alone.
The witness said, “We keep telling her not to leave her by herself, not just me, my friend across the street too, but she always leave her by herself.”