Nearly a year later baby's death still unsolved
| Wednesday, Nov 04 2009 05:07 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Nov 04 2009 05:07 PM
A Bakersfield mother is frustrated that her infant daughter was killed nearly a year ago, and no one has been brought to justice.
"It's extremely unfair," 27-year-old Claudia Cuevas said in tears.
However, reports obtained by The Californian indicate a social worker believes Cuevas may share some of the responsibility for her child's death.
The reports say it is unknown who injured the baby, 3-month old Arianna Cuevas. The baby was with an adult babysitter -- herself the mother of four children -- for several hours before Cuevas returned and found her child in distress.
A social worker suspected the mother knew that her infant was in distress before she left the child with the babysitter, a report says.
Cuevas said she has no idea what the social worker is referring to. She said the only reason she left the child was because she was asleep and was typically not a problem while she was asleep.
Yet the social worker said the mother may have been negligent in protecting her daughter from the conduct of a babysitter.
The social worker reported Cuevas and the babysitter had smoked marijuana the previous night.
The babysitter whose identity was blacked out in the reports also came under fire from police investigators who said she kept interrupting as police were trying to interview the babysitter's other children.
When an officer asked her what she was afraid of, she replied, "What I'm afraid is, he don't know what y'all is saying. I didn't hold the baby."
Bakersfield police are investigating the case, but have no solution to report, Detective Mary DeGeare said.
The case may be difficult to solve or prosecute. One glaring fact is it took five months before the child's death was even ruled a homicide.
The infant died in December, but it was May before the coroner declared someone killed her.
Police on Dec. 4 responded to a 911 call of a child not breathing at the babysitter's home in southwest Bakersfield.
The babysitter has been a friend of Cuevas for seven years, Cuevas said. The babysitter had four children, ages 2 to 9, police said.
The babysitter's school-aged children were not at home during the time Cuevas believes her child was injured, the mother said.
Police won't answer questions about the nature of the investigation such as whether it's difficult to prove when the child was injured or who did it.
Police reported that at one point, the babysitter called Cuevas and told her, "Your baby's crying, you need to come home and get her."
Cuevas said she immediately went back to the babysitter's home.
When she returned from the store, the babysitter gave her Arianna who "gasped" in her arms, Cuevas said.
She said it seemed like "a last gasp" and her daughter stopped breathing.
She called 911 on the babysitter's phone and followed an operator's instructions on how to give CPR.
Police initially reported there were "no signs of trauma," DeGeare said. The baby was taken to Mercy Hospital and then transferred to Valley Children's Hospital in Madera where she was pronounced dead several days later.
But it wasn't until May after further tests were performed on the child's brain that the Kern County coroner ruled the infant died from blunt force trauma to the back of the head. The coroner said it was a homicide, meaning a death at the hands of another.
The babysitter told police the child was in an infant car seat the entire time the mother was gone, and she only took the child out once to change a diaper.
Arianna has been dead now nearly a year. Cuevas said the anniversary is weighing on her. She said she would like to have closure and know what is going on.
"I have to live with this," she said. "I visit my daughter in the cemetery. It's just really tragic."
