Ohio toddler dies after being left alone for 8 days, mother went on 'vacation'

A 20-year-old Ohio mother was charged with the death of her 16-month-old daughter after she left the toddler in the house for 8 days straight while she went on vacation. 

Kristel Calendario of Clevland, Ohio was arrested on June 18 and charged with the murder of her daughter, Jailyn. 

She allegedly told investigators that she left her daughter "at home, all alone and unattended" when she was away in Puerto Rico and Detroit. Candelario came home and her daughter was dead after leaving her with no food or water.

Her daughter's playpen was covered in "soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces." 



A video report has comments from a mother and daughter who were neighbors of the Candelarios. The daughter said, "I absolutely love [Jailyn]. She was like a little sister to me." 

"We were absolutely heartbroken, we loved Jailyn a lot," the daughter added. 

The neighbors had been assigned to watch Jailyn before. Last August was the first time they met Jailyn and her mom Candelario told them she would be gone for a few days, she was back after a month and a half.

When Candelario had been gone for so long the mother recounted, “I was the one calling her saying, ‘Look I need milk. I need money. I don’t have money to buy milk for your baby.’ What am I supposed to do?”

However, this time, she left Jailyn all alone. In a court affidavit, marked with the probable cause being a "statement of facts," it states that Kristel told officers she left from Thursday, June 8 to Friday, June 16. Jailyn was "unresponsive" and "extremely dehydrated" when she was later found. 

The neighboring mother and daughter said that they would have watched Jailyn again if it was needed. However, since the incident, the neighboring mother said, "I wish for her to pay for what she did to her daughter."

Candelario is currently being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on a $1 million bond. Her court date is scheduled for June 28 at 8:30 a.m.