KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Preliminary autopsy results don’t provide the answers a Kansas City, Kan. mom was looking for in the day care death of her 11-month-old son.
“It haunts me every day and every night,” said mom Josie Sembler.
Her baby boy, Giovanni Jaraleno, never woke up from a nap at Advantage Child Care Center last Tuesday afternoon. Wyandotte County Coroner Dr. Alan Hancock said the early autopsy results are “inconclusive” but added that he’s still waiting for tissue and toxicology results, which might tell him if the boy had a rare virus or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
“We think he was too old for it to be SIDS. We just think there’s more to the story and eventually that piece of the puzzle will come out,” said Sembler.
Dr. Hancock told FOX 4 that SIDS can strike infants up to the age of 12-months but added that it’s possible he may never determine a cause of death. Sembler said she’s been told child care workers put her son down for a nap around noon but didn’t call 911 until 4 p.m., when they couldn’t wake Giovanni from a 4-hour nap.
Sembler said police told her that child care workers insisted they had been checking on Giovanni every 15 minutes but Sembler has reservations,
“There’s a lot of things as his mom that I have doubts about” adding medical staff told her Giovanni “had been gone for some time” by the time he reached the University of Kansas Hospital.
The daycare director for Advantage Child Care Center had no comment when FOX 4 knocked on her door. The center has been allowed to remain open while the state and county health departments investigate the child care center to ensure it was providing proper oversight.
Kansas regulations call for home day cares to check on sleeping children every 15 minutes, but there is no time requirement for child care centers like Advantage. Instead, child care center staff must be “in attendance with children at all times” according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokeswoman Miranda Steele.
Kansas City, Kansas police said since the autopsy found no sign of child abuse or physical trauma to the boy, its investigation is over. But Josie Sembler said she still has questions for Advantage Child Care Center.
“I just want people to know that I don’t hate them, I’m not mad at them, we just want answers.”
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