Woman Pleads Guilty for Strangling Boyfriend’s Toddler She Was Babysitting

Stock image of a baby. Rainer_Maiores/Pixabay

A woman has pleaded guilty to strangling her boyfriend’s daughter in 2018 in Clairton, Pennsylvania.

Deasha Ringgold killed 23-month-old Aubree Sherrell while was babysitting the girl in her apartment on Glenn Drive, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

She told investigators that she put the child to bed and went to sleep herself. She said she later found the child laying on her back and her lips were blue.

Police found inconsistencies in her statement and investigators found that an hour before the child’s death, Ringgold had researched online about how to do CPR on a child.

She also reportedly researched online, “How to wake up a knocked out person?” and “My friend got choked out, what do I do?”

Upon further investigation, the police discovered on Aug. 10 that the child had bruises around her neck and had died due to strangulation.

Ringgold was charged with homicide and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors dropped one of these charges as a part of the plea deal and consented to a sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.

Mom Issues Warning After Baby Is Strangled by Baby Monitor Cord

A mother in the United Kingdom issued a warning to parents of young children after her 1-year-old daughter, Jessica, died in a tragic accident.

Danielle Duggan of Shipdham, England, said she is mourning after her little girl died when the cord of her baby monitor strangled her, the New York Post reported on March 26, adding that the incident took place in October 2018.

Her daughter, who was 18 months, was set down for an afternoon nap. Duggan had placed the monitor on the top of a shelf in her daughter’s room.

Duggan and her husband, Jason, stated that they had tried to ensure that the monitor and the cord were secure, but while the parents were out of the room, the baby girl apparently grabbed the wire and managed to strangle herself.

When her parents noticed, they called emergency services, untangled the wire, and performed CPR. The child was rushed via ambulance to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

“I would urge that parents are really careful when setting up their monitors,” Duggan told The Sun publication. “A few years ago people were worried about blinds near cots, but we never had that.”

She said that nothing in her room changed for a year.

“The wire was always out of reach — it was a corner shelf above her cot and the camera was at the back of the shelf, and the wire was tucked behind the shelf and tacked all the way down the wall and it was plugged into an extension lead underneath her cot,” she said.

“The coroner and the police think that she had seen the extension lead and pulled the extension lead up from underneath,” the mother added, Yahoo reported. “The wires then got enough slack in it that she got the wire around her neck then the weight of the extension lead dropped and it cut off her air supply.”

Six months after her death, she said, “We are just urging parents to be extra cautious — you have to box in everything.”

Coroner Yvonne Blake said that the cause of death was compression of the neck by ligature.

The couple created a GoFundMe page after the girl’s death raise money for the air ambulance that attempted to save their daughter. “The air ambulance service is all run by charity and due to the amazing care they gave our daughter, we would like to raise money for them in the hope that the money will help others when needed,” they wrote.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.