On January 18, 2023 a woman in Florida was charged with aggravated manslaughter and neglect of a child. Police accused her of starving her newborn twins after one of them died due to severe malnutrition.

Police responded to a Boca Raton House on March 17, 2022 when called about a sick infant. They found officers from the Fire Rescue team trying to save a one-month-old child, according to an arrest affidavit.

The baby girl was not breathing, was unresponsive and did not have a pulse. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Delaila Pino LaSalle, 23, told police that she found her daughter unresponsive when she woke up to feed the twins. 

LaSalle, visiting from Puerto Rico,  was staying in her mother’s home with her three children. She said when she discovered her unresponsive baby, she ran and woke her mother up, who then called 911 and started CPR.

After further investigation, authorities believe LaSalle was responsible for her infant’s death. The baby was born with some medical problems but had recovered. According to the police, LaSalle was not properly caring for either of her infants and after the baby’s initial recovery, she didn’t follow her physician’s instructions.

The twins were born on February 5, 2022, and the girl was born with a cleft lip, upper respiratory distress, pneumonia, and a hole in her heart. She stayed in the NICU unit for a couple of weeks before doctors discharged her and she was doing well.

Doctors said that LaSalle did not show up for a follow-up appointment after the baby’s discharge.

One of the doctors said that the infant was admitted to the NICU ward because of respiratory issues, which went away within a week. Initially, the baby was tube fed, but they began bottle-feeding her without any problems as the infant recovered.

Upon discharge, the child was breathing normally, eating, and gaining weight.

The doctors at the hospital were concerned about the mother’s behavior, saying she refused to follow instructions.

The medical examiner ruled the baby’s death a homicide, and that her cause of death was malnutrition. He ruled out the possibility of the child’s preexisting conditions causing her death.

A week after the girl’s death, the other twin, a boy, was taken to the hospital, where doctors determined that the baby was suffering from severe starvation. The Children and Families department has since removed all the children from home. The boy is doing much better in foster care.

LaSalle is held on an $18,000 bond.