After 2-year-old York County girl dies, parents arrested on unrelated child endangerment charges

YORK — Two York County residents were charged with felony abuse or neglect of a child after their 2-year-old girl died Thursday.

A York-Poquoson Sheriff ’s Office spokesperson said the charges are not related to the death of the child, which is still under investigation, but stem from the living conditions of their home in Yorktown. The York County Coroner’s Office is still determining the child’s cause of death.

Each of the two residents, Anna Raines, 29, and Jesse Gunn, 37, was charged with one felony count of being a person responsible for a minor and committing a willful act or omission “so gross and wanton as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”

The York-Poquoson Sheriff ’s Office received a call at 9:54 a.m. on Thursday from

Raines, saying her child wasn’t breathing. The child

was pronounced dead at the scene at 10 a.m.

A firefighter at the scene noted that lividity, the settling of blood post-mortem, had already set in on the front and back of the child’s body. Additionally, she noted that one of the child’s arms was particularly cold, which “struck her as off,” and the child’s face had

“crease lines,” according to the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint says the home was in “disarray.” There was a large amount of clothing, trash and unclean dishes along with an overflowing litterbox. Additionally, cigarette butts and loose change were in the crib the child slept in, which was empty except for dry blankets with cigarette burn holes, piled upon urine-soaked blankets.

Raines and Gunn told police they used opiates and narcotics, respectively, in the last few days. After a search warrant was executed on the home, police discovered multiple components of syringes in the bedroom, a substance suspected to be heroin packed in capsules in the child’s diaper bag and a bin full of used syringes with one that was unused. Both the diaper bag and bin would have been accessible to the child, according to the criminal complaint.

Raines and Gunn told police conflicting accounts of the evening, according to the criminal complaint. Raines told police she had found her daughter lying face up and that she could not be sure when she returned home — she told police three different times she had last seen her child alive.

Gunn, the child’s father, said he placed her in her crib at approximately 3 a.m., woke up at 9 a.m., saw her lying face down on the floor and knew she was dead.

Raines and Gunn are being held without bail, according to court documents.