Woman charged after baby suffocates at unlicensed at-home day care, complaint says
A Stearns County, Minnesota, woman is accused of second-degree manslaughter after a 3-month-old baby suffocated in her allegedly unlicensed at-home day care.
The criminal complaint says Stearns County deputies were called to a residence on the 39000 block of County Road 186 around 2:20 p.m. on Nov. 11. They found the 53-year-old woman providing CPR to the infant.
The woman said she had placed in him a pack-and-play and went to another room. She hadn't heard from the baby in some time, and when she went to check on him, found him on his side with his face in a blanket, the complaint says. He was taken to the hospital, where he died. An autopsy determined his cause of death was suffocation due to an unsafe sleep environment.
The deputies noticed the pack-and-play was filled with blankets and a large pillow, which had a warning on it indicating it could be a suffocation hazard, court documents say.
The infant's mother told deputies that she paid the woman $150 a week for four days of care. There was another infant in the home, whose parents paid the same amount, according to the complaint.
The woman said she had previously worked for a licensed day care center but had been providing at-home care for approximately 10 years. She confirmed she was an unlicensed provider, according to the charges.
The director of a facility that she had briefly worked for in 2013 said they had trained her on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome before she started work, the complaint says.
Minnesota law also requires licensed and legal unlicensed day care providers to complete training related to safe sleep environments and preventing SIDS.
According to the complaint, the woman had posted on Facebook in 2019 that she had an infant spot available for paid child care. Stearns County Human Services sent her a letter outlining scenarios in which a day care license would be required, the complaint says. The woman responded, saying she had a disability and was not running an unlicensed day care.
The woman is charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter and one count of providing residential child care without a license, which is a misdemeanor.
