Cops say boyfriend ‘did nothing’ to help in teen’s diabetes death
Fabiola Cosme-Feliciano left her mother’s house on Nov. 29, with her lifesaving diabetes medications in hand, to stay with her boyfriend.
Five days later, the 19-year-old Cosme-Feliciano was dead from complications of diabetes. Now, her boyfriend Yeshua Ramirez is sitting in the Osceola County Jail — accused of carrying out a drive-by shooting with her in the car, then leaving her to die the next day in his home while he was out selling drugs.
Deputies arrested Ramirez on a manslaughter charge in Cosme-Feliciano’s death on Feb. 15. According to an affidavit, he left her alone for three or four hours as her condition worsened. When he returned, she was dead, deputies said.
Osceola County Sheriff Maj. Jacob Ruiz said detectives are still trying to piece together exactly what happened but believe she was likely suffering from diabetic shock. Ramirez, 19, often left her with no car and she got to a point where she wasn’t able to call for help herself, Ruiz said.
“He had knowledge of her deteriorating condition,” Ruiz said. “Her life depended on [getting care] and he did nothing about it.”
Ruiz said the case is similar to one last year in Brevard where a group of teens filmed and laughed at a disabled man drowning in a pond. Prosecutors there declined charges because the teens weren’t directly involved.
David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami, said Ramirez’s case is different because it was over a longer time period than the drowning and he had knowledge of his girlfriend’s condition.
Weinstein said the case is more similar to a parent who leaves their child in a car in the hot sun or the accidental discharge of a firearm.
“The issue here is, was he engaging in a conduct that showed a reckless disregard for human life?” said Weinstein, who is not involved in the case.
Days after Ramirez was jailed in Cosme-Feliciano’s death, the Sheriff ’s Office re-arrested him on an attempted murder charge in in a drive-by shooting that injured one person the day before her death.
Deputies say CosmeFeliciano was in the car and Ramirez blamed the shooting on her, but investigators believe he was the shooter based on his extensive criminal history and her lack of one.
Ruiz called Cosme-Feliciano’s death sad — and preventable.
“At a certain point I think we as citizens have to help one another,” he said. “No one expects you to put yourself in danger or make yourself uncomfortable, but when someone has the capability to get help or call for assistance, they have to do it. You have the ability and capability to save someone’s life and you do nothing?”
Her mother, Lilly Feliciano, said thinking about what her daughter went through is too tough to bear.
“The picture that I have in my head is not pretty,” she said, fighting back tears.
Cosme-Feliciano was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 2 years old. The family moved from their native Puerto Rico to Central Florida when she was 7 so she could receive treatment at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Feliciano said.
She had an insulin pump inserted but removed it a couple of years ago in favor of shots twice a day, her mom said.
Though her mother acknowledged that she had recently fallen in with a bad crowd, Cosme-Feliciano didn’t let the diabetes stop her from competing in weightlifting and cheerleading at Poinciana High School.
“It showed that she can do everything just like everybody else,” said her cheerleading coach, Tina Bailey.
Bailey said she took special precautions for Cosme-Feliciano’s diabetes. If she was looking tired, Bailey would have her rest, she said. Bailey said the signs that she needed to check her sugar were obvious.
“It just doesn’t happen overnight, it happens over time,” she said.
After graduating in 2016, Cosme-Feliciano went to Valencia College to study to be a nurse or EMT. Lilly Feliciano said she will remember her daughter for her “contagious” laugh.
“She was my best friend,” she said. “She did my hair, my nails, my makeup. She was my personal shopper. I miss her every single day.”
Lilly Feliciano called her daughter “way too beautiful to be from this earth.” Now she and her family have to deal with a death they believe should never have happened.
“I just cannot understand why someone left my baby like that,” she said. “That was cruel. No one deserves that. It’s like a nightmare and we have to wake up every day and realize it’s real.”
Ramirez is at the Osceola County Jail without bond.