Lauren Kay Dean (via Bay City (Tex.) Police).
A Texas woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars after pleading guilty to capital murder for leaving her bedridden, special-needs daughter unattended while she went out to a local bar.
Lauren Kay Dean admitted Wednesday to murdering her daughter Jordynn Barrera, 7, by failing to provide necessary medical care, according to Houston-area ABC affiliate KTRK, citing court documents.
Dean received an additional 20 years to her sentence for two counts of abandonment endangering a child, the report says.
Dean was arrested on Jan. 31, 2020, after Bay City Police officers when to her apartment for a welfare check that afternoon.
Dean was home when police arrived and invited them in to show that her children were fine, but when officers entered the apartment, they found Jordynn deceased, Fox News reported, citing court documents.
“During the check, officers located a deceased seven (7) year old female child inside the residence along with the mother of the child,” police said at the time. “The seven (7) year old child was bed-ridden due to medical conditions.”
According to KTRK, Jordynn was non-communicative and diagnosed with Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. She was also reportedly on a feeding tube.
Two other siblings, ages 5 and 3, also living there were removed from the home, police said.
Police arrested Dean, then 26, “for three separate, second degree felony charges of Abandon Endanger a Child – Imminent Danger Bodily Injury.”
Fox reported that while Dean was originally booked on felony abandonment and endangerment charges, shew as later charged with capital murder of a person under the age of 10.
The Bay City Tribune, a local newspaper, reported that the charge accused Dean of failing to provide necessary medical care to Jordynn and leaving her children home alone when she went to Shades Nightclub, a local bar.
Dean pleaded guilty in order to avoid the death penalty, the Bay City Tribune reported.
Bay City is about 80 miles southwest of Houston.
[Image via Bay City (Tex.) Police.]
