WHITE PLAINS – A Mount Vernon couple pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the death of their six-week-old baby in the mother’s Mount Vernon home.
Henry Lantigua and Shannelle Straker were charged in the death of their daughter, said Westchester County District Attorney Miriam Rocah.
On May 31, 2018, Mount Vernon Police and emergency services responded to 911 calls from the apartment where Straker lived with her mother and her two children, including the infant, Jessamine Lantigua, who was born on April 16, 2018, Jessamine’s father, Lantigua, lived nearby.
Both parents called 911 and on arrival, EMS found the infant unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at Montefiore-Mount Vernon Hospital.
Medical personnel noted the baby was emaciated and had a severe rash covering most of her body and face.
The medical examiner determined the death was a homicide and that the infant died from being undernourished, weighing only slightly more than she did at birth, a weight doctors would expect at 2 ½ weeks of age for this child.
Her parents pled guilty on June 15.
