An Indiana mother of three facing charges of neglect allegedly left her COVID-stricken three-month-old baby in the care of her nine-year-old son for hours, before the infant succumbed to the virus without getting any medical help.
A booking photo has now been released, showing 26-year-old Madelissa Flores, from Indianapolis, following her arrest last week on two counts each of neglect of a dependent and neglect of a dependent resulting in a catastrophic injury.
The four felony charges are related to the November 28, 2021, death of Flores’ youngest child. An autopsy showed that the baby boy, who has not been named, had blood in his lungs and died of COVID complications.
The infant and his siblings, ages 7 and 9, were found inside the family’s filthy, foul-smelling home, which had no electricity, was littered with dirty diapers and rotten food, and had containers of alcohol and antifreeze left on the floor, a detective wrote in the affidavit.
Authorities said the baby died while Flores went to a friend to vent about the stress of being a single mother.
Madelissa Flores, 26, Indiana, was charged with neglect after her 3-month-old baby died of COVID-19 with blood in his lungs
Flores was booked into jail on Friday and was ordered held without bail. She is due back in court for a pre-trial conference on March 31.
According to the affidavit, an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officer was called to Flores’ home in the 9400 block of East 42nd Street on November 28 to check on a baby.
The officer found a bystander performing CPR on the baby and took over the life-saving efforts before paramedics arrived. They noted in their report that the three-month-old was making jerking motions and vomiting. The child was rushed to Riley Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The autopsy report revealed the infant died of complications from COVID-19. The report also indicated that his lungs were bleeding, likely because of the illness, and that he suffered fractures in both femurs.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officials were at the home earlier that day investigating Flores, a single mother, for her history of child abuse going back to 2020, according to the Star.
During the visit, the baby was described as ‘gasping for air’ but receiving no medication inside a home filled with garbage where a 9-year-old was left in charge to watch over his siblings.
‘Madelissa stated that she left to go to a friend’s house because she is [a] single mom that is under a lot of stress and needed to talk to someone and did not have anyone available to watch her children while she was gone,’ police wrote in court documents obtained by the Star.
The family lives in an apartment on East 42nd Street, in Indianapolis. The home was described as not having electricity and covered in trash and used diapers
The baby, who was described as ‘gasping for air’ the day before his death, was found unresponsive and taken to Riley Children’s Hospital. The autopsy report revealed the infant died of complications from COVID-19
Child abuse investigator Det. Daniel Henson had interviewed Flores the morning before the incident as he checked the conditions inside the residence, according to the court documents.
Henson said there was no electricity in the apartment and that the floor was covered in dirty diapers and trash that included a marijuana cigar and an open bottle of antifreeze.
There was also no food in the refrigerator, alcohol bottles were ‘left in the open,’ and a foul odor throughout the apartment, Henson wrote.
He added that conditions matched previous complaints at the Indiana Department of Child Services in 2020 and 2021, which alleged Flores left her kids unattended for hours inside the squalid home, where her 9-year-old son would be tasked with caring for his sibling and visiting neighbors for food.
There were also reports of a rodent infestation at the residence.
The Indiana Department of Child Services and Indiana Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
During the visit hours before the baby’s death, Henson spoke with one of the neighbors whose son was shocked by the conditions inside the apartment.
The boy had gone over to play at the apartment with Flores’ nine-year-old son the prior day when he recorded a video of the infant ‘alone in the dark house, screaming with no adults in sight,’ Henson wrote in court documents.
When the neighbor discovered that the children were left unattended at the house while Flores was out, she instructed her son to bring the children over.
The infant was described as wearing a soiled, wet diaper, and was having a hard time breathing as he coughed.
Henson added in the court documents that the baby had been carried by his 7-year-old sister, who ‘had difficulty carrying [the infant] and often dropped him,’ the Star reported.
Flores came over at 2am to pick up the children, before leaving them home alone again just hours later, the neighbor told Henson.
When the detective spoke with Flores, she said the baby was congested and wheezing, had an ‘old man dry cough,’ and was ‘trying to gasp for air’ on the day before his death. She told Henson she was trying to ‘treat it naturally before going to any doctors,’ the Star reported.
Although she told Henson she was present at the home on November 27 and 28, she later admitted that she had gone out to dinner for than night, and then met up with a friend and spent an additional six hours sitting in a parking lot and talking. At no point during that time did she go to check on her children.
At around 2am, Flores went over to her neighbor to pick up her three kids and took them home.
At 6am the next day, Flores said her baby was behaving normally. She went out again for four hours to visit a friend and vent ‘because she is a single mom that is under a lot of stress and needed to talk to someone and did not have anyone available to watch her children while she was gone,’ according to the affidavit. By the time she came back at 10am, Flores’ baby was not breathing, the Star reported.
Henson added that the fractures in the baby’s femurs were common among children who are physically abuses through violent shacking due to their limbs being forcibly yanked.
