Infant girl dies, twin sick after stay in foster care, police say

Bakersfield Californian, The (CA)

Author: CHRISTINA VANCE, Californian staff writere-mail: cvance@bakersfield.com

An infant girl died and her twin sister was seriously sick after a stay in foster care, police said Wednesday.

Sources identified the dead baby as Angelic Clary.

The girl's sister, who wasn't identified at press time, was in good condition at Memorial Hospital, a spokeswoman said.

On Tuesday night, officers arrested Sabrina Stafford, 36, on suspicion of two counts of felony willful child neglect, Bakersfield police Detective Mary DeGeare said.

Stafford was a foster parent who was caring for the 3-month-old girls at her apartment in the 6300 block of Castleford Street, investigators said.

The investigation began around 9 a.m. Sunday when Stafford called to report that one of the twins had stopped breathing, police said.

Medical personnel found one child was dead. They said the second child had a body temperature of 104.8 degrees and rushed her to Memorial Hospital.

On Monday, hospital officials told police that the infant was malnourished and dehydrated, police said.

Stafford told detectives that she fed and changed the babies on Sunday around 1 a.m. before putting them in car seats to sleep.

Her 17-year-old son also said he fed and changed the children around 3 a.m., police said.

But when Stafford awoke later Sunday morning, she said one of the twins was cold and not breathing. The death was originally suspected to be sudden infant death syndrome, police said.

More tests are being done on the deceased child, a Kern County coroner's spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Police said they made an arrest because of the condition of the surviving baby and conditions of the home, but they didn't elaborate on what those conditions were.

No one was at the Stafford home Wednesday evening, but some neighbors defended Stafford as a polite, kindly churchgoer.

Cynthia Suell said she's known Stafford for about 10 years. She said Stafford raised three of her own children as a single parent and worked as a foster parent.

"This is very shocking. She took care of them very well," she said.

Suell said Stafford homeschooled some of her children and spent lots of time in the home because she had a heart condition.

Neighbor Becky Gonzales said she rarely spoke to Stafford, but she said that wasn't rare in their south Bakersfield apartment complex.

She said everyone just saw the ambulance and investigators and wondered what happened.

"They had a blanket or a sheet covering something up, but we didn't know what it was," she said.