Mendocino County woman charged with murder in baby’s death
A 24-year-old Ukiah woman suspected of giving birth to an infant in a bathroom, then leaving the child to die in a car was arrested on suspicion of murder, Mendocino County Sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.
Yareli Diaz will be charged Thursday in Mendocino County Superior Court with the murder of her 1-day-old daughter, Mia Cielo Diaz, more than one year after doctors at Ukiah Valley Medical Center tried to save the child’s life and reported the suspicious death to the Sheriff’s Office, officials said.
The yearlong investigation revealed the infant received no care from Diaz between the time she was born about 2:45 p.m. April 3, 2018, and when the baby was taken to the hospital later that night, Lt. Shannon Barney said.
“It’s a tragic case,” he said.
Investigators determined Diaz gave birth to the girl in a bathroom at her parents’ home, wrapped the baby in a towel and put it in the back seat of a car, Barney said. Diaz cleaned up the bathroom “in what appeared to be an attempt to conceal the child’s birth from her parents,” sheriff’s officials said.
Diaz drove to work about ?6 p.m. in the car with the baby still in the back seat on a day when the high temperature was 77 degrees, according to Barney. Diaz left work to meet a friend about 8:45 p.m., confiding in the friend about the birth, and the friend convinced her to bring the hours-old infant to a hospital.
Doctors at Ukiah Valley Medical Center were unable to revive the child and reported the death to the Sheriff’s Office at 10:05 p.m. Hospital staff felt the death was suspicious because “it appeared to be a health baby with no obvious cause of death, and (Diaz’s) statements were inconsistent,” officials said.
A forensic pathologist determined the child had been born a full-term, healthy girl who died from being suffocated because her mouth and nose were covered by towels and the placenta, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Diaz originally told detectives that she didn’t know she was pregnant, but investigators found evidence she had told an acquaintance. She was living at home with her parents, who were helping her raise her older child, officials said.
The forensic report was completed in August, and sheriff’s detectives continued investigating the case, eventually handing an investigative report into the baby’s death to the District Attorney’s Office for review.
Prosecutors filed charges Monday in Mendocino County Superior Court and requested a judge sign a warrant for her arrest. Diaz was arrested Wednesday at her home on North State Street in Ukiah. She’s being held in lieu of $500,000 bail. Court records show the arraignment is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.
You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.