Indianapolis mother charged after death of 4-month-old baby
Police officers say infant was found ‘emaciated’
This article contains mention of child neglect. You can report abuse or neglect anonymously by calling the 24/7 Indiana Department of Child Services' hotline at 800-800-5556.
When Indianapolis officers responded to investigate Baby Iyari’s death, clues that something was amiss were apparent, according to a police report.
The 4-month-old had no visible injuries when Indianapolis officers arrived at her home. But police noticed the baby was emaciated, despite the child’s mother explaining she had just stopped breathing. A search of the home turned up no baby bottles, formulas, or cribs.
Iyari’s mother, Tiera Crute, has now been charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in death, months after the infant was found dead March 3. Crute did not have an attorney listed Thursday.
A probable cause affidavit detailing the case shows the months-long police investigation that led up to the charging decision.
Investigating baby Iyari’s death
As police continued to investigate the home where Iyari was found, detectives took Crute, 25, to the hospital to ask what happened.
According to the police report, Crute explained her child had trouble breathing since she was born prematurely, only weighing 4 pounds at the time. Crute said she fed Iyari a bottle about 8 a.m. the day she was found dead, until the baby fell asleep in her arms. About a half hour after the feeding, Crute said she noticed Iyari wasn’t breathing and asked the Iyari's father to call for an ambulance.
Interviews with the child’s father gave a different account, child abuse detectives noted.
The child’s father said the baby fell asleep on the couple’s bed and began making a fussing sound in the middle of the night. He placed a pacifier in Iyari’s mouth and said she stopped making the sounds, so he assumed she was feeling better. The baby’s father told police he woke up in the morning and didn’t hear her. When he checked for a pulse, he didn’t feel one. Her father has not been charged, court records show.
An autopsy the following day ruled Iyari’s cause of death undetermined, but pathologists noted she was malnourished and only weighed 7.1 pounds.
In August, an investigative report by a nurse practitioner at Riley Hospital for Children made the final determination. A review by the hospital’s Child Protection Team reiterated Iyari died from an undetermined cause, but the conflicting reports about what led up to her death raised “significant concern," the report stated.
The hospital’s medical records showed Iyari was gaining an appropriate amount of weight, 32 grams per day, while she was admitted for about two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. Based on her weight the day she died, Iyari’s weight gain since she was released from the hospital dropped to just 7.9 grams a day, doctors estimated in the report.
“A pediatrician would have recognized this abnormality and had an opportunity to intervene,” the nurse practitioner wrote, further saying the baby was never taken in for routine medical exams.
The hospital report ruled the case as medical neglect, based on Iyari’s appearance and her caregivers never seeking medical care.