What Did She Think Was Going to Happen?! – The Story of Jailyn Candelario
What Did She Think Was Going to Happen?! – The Story of Jailyn Candelario
But what she did see were her eyes opened, looking at her, saying, “Why did you do this to me?” Animals take care of their infants better. The thought of this child dying every day while she’s having fun—humanity can’t stomach that.
The story I have for you today is one in which this little girl’s monster was just recently sentenced. It’s a case of unbelievable neglect and total disregard for this toddler’s well-being, and the mother’s reason for doing it was completely unacceptable. This is the story of Jailyn Candelario.
Jailyn Candelario was born on January 26, 2022, to her mother, Crystal Candelario, and her father, Henry Garcia. Jailyn was described as a curious and happy baby, and she also had an older sister whom she loved. Now, Jailyn’s mother, Crystal, had been born in Ecuador and moved to the United States after finishing college. In the States, she worked as a Spanish teacher for several years before taking on the role of a Family Resource Specialist at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
As of 2023, and possibly sooner, 32-year-old Crystal, along with her two daughters, was living at her parents’ home, which was located on West 97th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. At the beginning of June 2023, Jailyn’s grandparents went on vacation to Ecuador and brought along Jailyn’s 7-year-old sister. Before they left, Crystal told her parents that they didn’t need to worry about her and the baby because they would be there the entire week; she claimed she had no plans.
Prior to this, in February 2023, Crystal had been hospitalized for two months for her mental health. In order to help her deal with her mental and emotional stress, she and her boyfriend at the time—who was also Jailyn’s father—decided they would go on a trip together in June 2023. It would give her time to relax and forget about the things she had been dealing with. But not long after they made these plans, Crystal and her boyfriend began having problems and broke up, so the trip was canceled. The breakup, as well as the cancellation of the trip, made Crystal’s mental health go downhill even further, and she began to struggle as a single mom.
When Crystal saw her parents leave on their trip, she decided that she needed to get away for her mental health. Impulsively, she threw some things into a suitcase, grabbed her keys, and walked out the door, leaving Jailyn behind in her pack-and-play all alone. When Jailyn’s father asked about his daughter after finding out that Crystal was out of town, she told him not to worry, as her mother was babysitting her for the week.
Crystal would end up being gone for an entire 10 days, and she had only left her daughter with a few bottles of milk. So, when Crystal finally decided to come back home on June 16, 2023, shortly before 8:00 a.m., she found her daughter unresponsive and called 911.
[911 Operator]: “911, what’s your address?” [Crystal]: “Please, I can’t help you if I don’t know where you’re at. Tell me the address so we can help you.” [Operator]: “Okay, is it a single apartment? What’s your name?” [Crystal]: “Crystal.” [Operator]: “What’s your last name, Crystal?” [Crystal]: “Crystal [inaudible].” [Operator]: “Tell me what’s going on. What’s going on?” [Crystal]: “I can help you, she doesn’t respond.” [Operator]: “She’s… I understand you. Tell me who’s… who’s with you?” [Crystal]: “My mom. Oh, my mother is dying. She’s dying. She’s dying. Stop, please. I need help. How old is she?”
Even though Crystal sounds panicked in the 911 call, I have to ask: what did she think was going to happen to her 16-month-old daughter when she left her alone for 10 days? The Cleveland Police responded to the emergency phone call and found Jailyn in her pack-and-play, not breathing, very thin, and covered in urine and feces. The liner on her playpen was also completely soiled, and there were numerous soiled blankets in the pack-and-play as well. Little Jailyn’s eyes were sunken in, and she looked extremely dehydrated. There was nothing the first responders could do; it looked like Jailyn had been dead for some time. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Apparently, before the paramedics had shown up, Crystal had actually redressed her daughter in clean clothes so that it looked like she hadn’t just completely neglected her.
Police body-cam footage from that morning shows Crystal blatantly lying to police officers. She seems extremely calm, shows very little emotion, and even tried to blame her daughter’s starvation on the toddler refusing to eat. Crystal casually told officers that she had been home the entire week with Jailyn, and that Jailyn—who normally sleeps 12 hours a night—just never woke up.
“On the morning of June 6th… Monday and Tuesday of this week, she was growing up, yes. And then how was she Wednesday and Thursday? She was with no food, just with a meal, because she was refusing… maybe because she didn’t get one meal for two days, you know, before? So that’s why I was scared because I said, ‘Oh my god, I need to go to the hospital because she doesn’t eat anything.’ And she was losing weight… but right now, in this morning, when I wake up, she was asleep. She sleeps every day 12 hours. Okay? She sleeps like from 9:00 p.m. through 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. 12 hours. So, in this morning, I was sleeping too. I never wake up. She was out.”
“What happened? What was going on last night?” “Last night she was crying a lot, and I saw one moment when I was taking a shower, she was screaming, like… I don’t know, probably she was in pain.” “Okay, maybe about what time was that last night?” “Maybe at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. Okay, so she was screaming, like, probably from pain or something like that. And this morning, when I wake up, you know, I went to her in the morning for Jailyn to wake up, and she didn’t wake up. And when I saw her, I saw she looked like really, really dry, like… yeah, like something [inaudible].”
As she spoke with them, sitting in the chair, her daughter’s body was lying by her feet, covered by a blanket. Now, although there were no signs of trauma on Jailyn’s body, police were not buying Crystal’s story, and they brought in homicide detectives. Eventually, Crystal would admit to detectives that she had left her daughter alone in her playpen on June 6th. Crystal told them that on that day, she had gotten into her car and driven to Detroit. There, she had stayed with a man before leaving again on June 8th and flying Spirit Airlines to Puerto Rico. After that, she returned to Michigan on June 11th, stayed with another man, and finally returned home on June 16th.
On Crystal’s Facebook profile, she had posted many light-hearted photos, including one that shows Puerto Rico’s Isla Verde Beach, which was taken while her daughter was at home, hungry and terrified. Crystal had captioned the photo in Spanish, stating, “Time enjoyed is the true time lived.” So, she clearly enjoyed her time there, never worrying about her daughter who was slowly dying a painful death back at home.
Crystal was arrested on June 17th and was charged with murder, aggravated murder, child endangerment, and felonious assault. She was then held at Cuyahoga County Jail on a $1 million bond. The medical examiner found that Jailyn had died from starvation as well as extreme dehydration due to neglect. She weighed only 13 pounds at the time of the autopsy, which was an entire 7 pounds less than she had weighed at her last doctor’s appointment, which was only two months prior. In addition, Jailyn had been found with feces caked to her hands, underneath her fingernails, on the bottoms of her feet, and on her teeth, which is a sign that she had tried to eat her own feces in order to survive. Due to her severe symptoms of dehydration, she had also suffered kidney failure. The little girl had likely died two or three days prior to her mother arriving home, which means that Jailyn survived all alone inside her filthy playpen—probably completely confused and scared out of her mind—for almost an entire week.
Cleveland police detectives reviewed more than 600 videos captured by a Ring doorbell camera that belonged to one of Crystal’s neighbors. It showed the so-called mother packing her suitcase into her car and driving off on June 6th. In another video that police reviewed, you can hear Jailyn screaming at 1:00 in the morning on June 9th—three days after she had been left home all alone. Then, in yet another video, Crystal’s car was seen arriving home at 7:36 in the morning on June 16th; 11 minutes later, the frantic 911 call would be made. In watching the doorbell camera footage, police also discovered that Crystal had actually left Jailyn two days prior to her vacation as well; she had left her on June 4th before returning on June 6th for a few hours and then leaving her again.
Neighbors who lived along West 97th Street and knew the baby girl were devastated by the news. One neighbor said, “We can’t believe that she’s gone. Jailyn… she was a happy baby, always smiling, always curious about stuff. She was a wonderful, wonderful baby.” And another neighbor of Crystal’s spoke and said that she knew of another time that Crystal had left baby Jailyn home by herself. This neighbor said she had also previously told Crystal not to leave her daughter home all by herself, but she didn’t listen, and the neighbor didn’t call anybody.
When she found out that she was still leaving her home alone, another neighbor and her 13-year-old daughter said they didn’t understand why Crystal had not reached out for help with Jailyn. The 13-year-old said that she was very sad about Jailyn passing and she had thought of the little girl as a sister. They had first met Jailyn the summer before, when Crystal had asked them to babysit her for a weekend. But days would turn into weeks, and Crystal began not answering her phone. When she finally did answer her phone, she made excuses as to why she had not returned home yet. The neighbor told Crystal that she needed money for milk and to take care of her daughter; she also wanted to know when she was coming back, but Crystal would give her no definitive answers. She didn’t call the authorities; she just kept watching Jailyn. That time, Crystal did not return for six weeks, and by then, Jailyn had been calling the neighbor “Mama”—and rightly so, as she was taking care of her more than Crystal was.
However, there were no previous records with Child Protective Services involving Crystal. In February of 2024, much to everyone’s surprise, Crystal would end up pleading guilty after she accepted a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and child endangerment, resulting in the dismissal of her other charges. Her sentencing hearing was scheduled for the following month.
Crystal would also speak for the first time since her arrest. She would say that she had a deep struggle with depression that she had hidden from the outside world. She also said that she had taken the trip to deal with her emotional stress and she had never had any intentions of her daughter being harmed; at the time, she just had to get away. Crystal also says that she prays for daily forgiveness, as her daughters were everything to her—her whole world—and she thinks about them every single day. During the trip, Crystal said that she had thought about her daughter who was home by herself. The people who had gone on the trip with her had seen that she was acting differently and angry; they asked her what was wrong, as she didn’t seem like herself, but she never said anything about Jailyn.
Crystal also confessed that for a few minutes, she had considered calling a family member or a neighbor to go check on her daughter, but she never did. She also said that when Jailyn died, her world had fallen apart—and not because she was going to jail, but as she said: “I felt Jailyn could be saved. Things didn’t have to happen that way because she was doing well. I always took care of her.” In her mind, apparently—because not in the real world.
Crystal then went on to say, “I pray to God that I see her again one day. There’s so much pain I have in regards to the loss of my baby, Jailyn. I’m extremely hurt about everything that happened. I’m not trying to justify my actions or anything, but nobody knew how much I was suffering or what I was going through. God and my daughter have forgiven me,” which is awfully presumptuous for Crystal.
During the sentencing hearing, the courtroom was filled with Cleveland Police homicide detectives, law enforcement officers, and first responders who had worked on Jailyn’s case. A homicide detective, his sergeant, and the forensic pathologist who had performed the autopsy held back tears as they all described Jailyn’s death as one of the worst of their careers. The forensic pathologist said it was a type of suffering none of us could fathom. She also spoke in the courtroom and said that children experience the most extreme separation anxiety between 9 and 18 months old. Jailyn would have wanted her mommy more than anything, but instead, the pain and suffering that she endured lasted not only hours, not only days, but possibly up to an entire week. The feeling of abandonment that Jailyn must have felt for days on end, coupled with the pain of starvation and extreme thirst, is suffering beyond comprehension.
Sergeant Teresa Gomez teared up and said, “This tragedy should have never happened. I am Sergeant Gomez from the homicide unit. The entire homicide unit, Cleveland homicide initiative, and our partners from the FBI are here today in honor of baby Jailyn Candelario. When we were first notified of this horrific case, we were all heartbroken, but when we started digging deeper into the investigation, it was beyond horrific. It was revealed that the defendant, Crystal Candelario, left her own child alone for hours, which led to days, which led to weeks. This 16-month-old baby was left alone in a pack-and-play to fend for herself for 11 days with no food, maybe milk, the clothing she had on, and the diaper she was wearing. This baby loved her mother; she needed her mother, and her mother betrayed her.”
“In addition, Your Honor, just so the record is very clear: the State of Ohio has tried repeatedly to contact Jailyn’s extended family, and absolutely no one has called back. The prosecutor’s office has returned calls, but no one has done anything to acknowledge that Jailyn was even part of their family. As you also look behind me, it is law enforcement—whether it be from Cleveland homicide, from the FBI, from the District, from EMS—these are all the people that participated in this case, and they are here to be the family for Jailyn Candelario because her own family did not have the courage to call the prosecutor’s office and ask what was going on with their case. They were more concerned with their own daughter, Crystal.”
The defense attorney said that his client had been treated for depression in February of 2023. This was after she had shown up at Hillcrest Hospital completely numb on one side of her body. While doctors originally believed that it was a stroke, they ended up determining that it was a side effect triggered by extreme stress and anxiety. So, Crystal had been prescribed multiple medications, but she had stopped taking them weeks before her trip when she had run out. Some of the medication was antidepressants, and she had come off of them cold turkey—when it is very much recommended to slowly wean down so that you don’t have all kinds of terrible side effects like being horribly depressed.
Her attorney also said that she had tried to take her own life at that time. He insinuated that the treatment she had received for mental and physical problems prior to June was inadequate. Her attorney said she couldn’t articulate her own state of mind at that time, which is alarming. Not only was she on a couple different antidepressants, but she also stopped taking them—so that in and of itself is an issue—but he also did say that Crystal’s actions were “unjustifiable, narcissistic, selfish, abhorrent, and absolutely the worst parenting imaginable.”
Crystal’s parents also spoke on her behalf. They apologized to her and Jailyn for missing the signs that Crystal was struggling inside. Her father, Candelario, said, “Depression and anxiety consumed her to the point of depriving her of good judgment and reason.” You can be depressed, and I’m very sorry for that, but you can’t hurt anybody else because you’re depressed—especially your own child.
The prosecution spoke about Crystal’s wherewithal to change Jailyn’s clothes prior to the police arriving and how she had concocted a cover story to tell police after she had discovered Jailyn’s lifeless body when she returned home from her trip. There had also been phone calls made from jail by Crystal in November of 2023 and January of 2024, in which she recalls how much fun she had in Puerto Rico. The prosecution would say she abandoned her daughter and left her for dead. The thought of this child dying every day while she’s having fun—humanity can’t stomach it. Animals take care of their infants better.
“And during the time that she has been locked up, she has been making plans for the future, talking to other folks at other jails, other prisons. She had a conversation, which I find more disturbing than not. But on November 26, 2023, instead of wrought with emotion, wrought with guilt, crying about the death of her child, she’s talking… talking with a friend about her trip to Puerto Rico, and what a blast it was, and how much the car cost, and that they got a truck versus a car even though it was more expensive, and they were concerned about the other woman that was on the trip because she liked to spend money, and they spent money on food. There was never a mention about her daughter in her phone calls.”
“And in fact, on January 6, 2024, she’s talking to her mother—her mother who she repeatedly talks to—and they talk about God, God, God is forgiving, God is this. You also have to take responsibility for your actions, and God isn’t in the courtroom. That’s why we have judges, and that’s why we have the law, because we have to follow the law. But this is what she says—because, you know, she wants to make us believe that she doesn’t understand the English language—she goes on to say: ‘There are people who have gone free here killing people, I mean, imagine, I mean, intentionally, and mine was practically one, I mean, an accident. I mean, because it was not like I did it intentionally; it’s not like I picked up a gun or a bat or the girl bled or something like that. That’s it. It was practically the same thing that happened to me. A few days prior, I had had the same thing happened to me days prior.’ Were you starved when you were in Puerto Rico, Ms. Candelario? Did you not have a glass of water to drink when your mouth was parched?”
Jailyn’s death was not a simple oversight, and Crystal had many opportunities to intervene and save her daughter’s life. The judge sentenced Crystal to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and this is what the judge had to say to her at the time:
“The bond between a mother and a child is one of the most purest and most sacred bonds between human beings. It’s a relationship built on love, trust, and unwavering protection. Yet, in a shocking betrayal of this fundamental trust, you committed the ultimate act of betrayal. You could have found someone to watch her while you were gone. You could have taken her with you while you were in Detroit or Puerto Rico. You could have called someone in Cleveland and told them that Jailyn needed help. Despite all of her suffering, that little baby persevered, waiting for someone to save her, and you could have done that with a simple phone call. Instead, I see photos of you on a beach while your child was eating her own feces to attempt to survive.”
“Photos mean something, and I’m well aware of mental health, but [it] didn’t look like you were too concerned about your child. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you stayed at your state in Detroit without regard [for] Jailyn, alone in pain, clenching her fists in distress from the exhibits I just looked at, trapped in a tiny prison that you left her in. You knew enough to start lying, you concocted story after story trying to hide what you did. You even put pants on her, but you couldn’t hide the absolute horror and filth that she spent the last days of her life [in]. And I hear this morning that you went out and managed to go out with someone that you were with, and he was too upset to eat, but you weren’t. And then I hear that you’re in jail and you’re telling people, ‘I can’t wait to get home.'”
“As a court, I have to remember Jailyn where you did not. Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement until she died, so too you should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom. The only difference will be that prison will at least feed you and give you liquids that you denied her.”
And the lead detective on Jailyn’s case, TJ Powell, said in the courtroom that she will never be forgotten. His voice quivered as he read a poem that he had written in her memory:
“J is for the justice that will be received today. A is for the angel wings she earned on that dreadful day. I is for the incremental repetition, buildup of suspense for a death that clearly makes no sense. L is for the lack of love while alone for 11 days. Y is for a young life that was taken away. N is for new eternal life Jailyn gained on that day. No child should ever have to die this way.”
Well, thank you for listening to all of Jailyn’s story today. It is unbelievable that a mother could leave her own child home alone, especially an infant who can’t do anything for themselves. Jailyn had to fend for herself, crying for hours for her mother to come tend to her, but her mother was too busy having fun with her friends on the beach—one simple thing that Crystal couldn’t even do.
