Jessica Cummings and Katie Cornejo-Robertson, Day Care HORROR

The original story was going to be on Jessica Cummings, 27. Ms. Cummings was a day care provider in Wichita, Kansas. Ms. Cummings ran her day care out of her home; like a lot of day care providers do. She shared her home with her daughter and her sister, Tiffanie Williams, 30. [url=Viisit her Myspace page here!]http://www.myspace.com/happygosunshine[/url]
On March 25, 2008, Ms. Cummings had a little girl in her care named Kailee Rhianne Marie Hundley, 13 months. Kailee was a normal 13 month old; she cooed and cawed, she waddled around, she drank her bottle loudly. This bothered “Queen of the World”, Tiffanie—you see she had worked the late shift at the fast food restaurant where she made her living and needed to rest before she could go out with her boyfriend. Bottle slurping noises weren’t something she could put up with; so Tiffanie whined to her loving sister, Jessica to stop the racket—she did need her beauty sleep so she would be well rested for her booty call that evening. It has also been reported that Ms. Cummings claimed that Kailee’s loud noises were disturbing other children napping in her home. Jessica decided to strap Kailee into an infant car seat get her to nap. A car seat that was too small.
Did I mention that she only partially strapped Kailee into the car seat? Ms. Cummings left the little girl unattended for 2 and a half hours, incorrectly strapped into her seat. Kailee strangled to death on that improperly used restraint belt.

At her trial, Jessica (7 months pregnant with another child of her own), testified that she never meant any harm to the child; but also acknowledged that she knew what her day care license required of her—that being that any child under 18 months old was to sleep in a crib or playpen. Not a stroller. Not a car seat.
Maybe Ms. Cummings didn’t mean for anything to happen; but something did. That something happened because she blatantly ignored the regulations set forth in accordance to her day care providers license. Maybe she doesn’t deserve hell for making a mistake; but she deserves hell for being eight feet away from the child while she was dying and doing nothing to stop it.
That’s right; as this child was sitting partially strapped in her car seat choking on the belt, Jessica Cummings was in her kitchen eight feet away from her. How can you be 8 feet away from a child who is choking and not glance in at them? How could you be 8 feet away from a child period, and not look in at them for 2 and a half hours? Why didn’t she look in at Kailee? Well, she didn’t want to wake her up.

Jessica Cummings was found guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter on December 23, 2008. She remained free on bond until her sentencing, which was supposed to be in January 2009 but Judge Joseph Bribiesca pushed back the date because of her pregnancy. Jessica gave birth to her new baby in early March 2009, and was sentenced to 32 months in prison on April 4, 2009.

She begged to be let off with no prison time, stating that she is a mother of two and her family had been through enough. Judge Bribiesca; however, wouldn’t hear of it; he cited a mortality table showing that a girl of Kailee’s age had a remaining life expectancy of 80.2 years.

“Eighty-point-two years was taken.”

Now here is what I missed.

Kailee’s biological mother, Katie Cornejo-Robertson, was in the courtroom calling for prison time in this case, stating that Jessica needed time to reflect on her actions—not weird in and of itself—but it’s weird because Mrs. Cornejo-Robertson was about to stand trial for the murder of a child herself.
Mrs. Cornejo-Robertson had a step-daughter, 2 ½ year old Daytona Jo-Lei Robertson. She was also pregnant with another child. Daytona attended the same day care as Kailee. Daytona was also the victim of a vile adult.

On February 25, 2008, Daytona suffered a severe beating at the hands of someone. Her step-mother called EMT’s stating that she was having seizures. Daytona was transported to the hospital where she died five days later from her injuries. Cornejo-Robertson’s 6 year old son was also present in the home at the time of the beating; he would later speak to police about what he witnessed and his statements would be used in court.
Mrs. Cornejo-Robertson was arrested on February 25th for aggravated battery, and on the day Daytona died charges were amended to include a 1st degree murder charge. District Judge Eric Yost set a $100,000 bond for Katie and she was ordered to stay away from her husband, Daytona’s father, Tommy Robertson. There was to be no contact whatsoever. She met her bond and was released from custody.

On April 20, 2008, Katie broke her bond agreement by following her husband to a mall, and then to a police station where he stopped to report her. Kailee’s father also found a note on her grave from Katie, hinting at suicide, which he turned over to Tommy Robertson. Authorities were in the process of revoking her bond when she was found at a friend’s house unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital and underwent an emergency c-section for the son she was carrying. He was born on April 28, 2008 and lived for 20 hours.

So just in case you lost count, that’s 3 children in the same family that have died within a 2 month period.

Katie’s husband blames the authorities for the death of his son, saying that had they left Katie in custody she wouldn’t have been able to take drugs and attempt suicide, keeping his son safe in her womb.

Katie was taken to a psychiatric hospital where she could recover from her ordeal before going into court to face having her bond revoked. Her attorney, public defender Mark Orr, said he felt Katie should be released on bond to spend time with her family. Prosecuting Attorney, Justin Edwards, argued that since she had already violated her bond conditions, she should be remanded.

In June of 2008, District Judge Clark Owens, ordered Katie back to jail where she would stay until they got to the bottom of the murder of Daytona.

On April 21, 2008, a mistrial was declared in her murder trial following one day of deliberations for jurors. Judge Clark set a new court date for June 8, 2009.

I don’t know if this family is just unlucky, or careless about who they put in charge of their children; but to have 3 die in a span of 2 months seems ridiculous.

It is my feeling that both Jessica Cummings and Katie Cornejo-Robertson should never be allowed to care for another child in their lives. Sure, Ms. Cummings made a stupid mistake—but where do we draw the line on the subject of safety of our children? She made a mistake that she KNEW not to make; yet she still did it. What if one of her children is too loud and she duct tapes them to a wall or something? How do we know we won’t be revisiting her again? The scary thing about cases involving children is that they can’t protect themselves, they can’t say when enough is enough.

As for Katie Cornejo-Robertson; that’s a different kind of person right there. What could a 2 year old possibly do to deserve to be beaten profusely about the head to the point of seizures and ultimately death? What kind of person does it take to resort to doing this? Not one who deserves to be called “mom”.

In my honest to goodness opinion, this is happening WAY too often. It seems like we can’t go a day without hearing about another dead baby. First there was Caylee. She never stood a chance with her selfish whore mom. Then there was Haleigh. She never stood a chance; her life was put in the hands of an immature teenage “step-mother”. Most recently, there was Sandra. Melissa Huckaby is a pig. There is no telling what’s coming next—but something needs to be done to prevent this.

Where do people go when Hell fills up; because it sure seems like there are an awful lot of future dwellers lately.

Editor’s Note: The photo’s are, from top to bottom:

Jessica Cummings

Katie Cornejo-Robertson

Kailee Hundley

Daytona Jo-Lei Robertson

Tommy Robertson, father of Daytona Robertson

Natasha Paul, biological mother of Daytona Robertson

I looked at several stories about the Katie Cornejo-Robertson trial, and it is a study in frustration. It came down to a battle of the experts who testified about when little Daytona received her head injuries.

The Wichita (Kansas) Eagle wrote:

“The prosecution contended, through medical experts, that the internal head injuries were so severe that Daytona would have shown symptoms quickly — on the day she was home with Cornejo and went to a hospital.”

The Eagle also wrote:

“One of the Jurors who voted not guilty, Robert Allen, told them that the testimony of pediatric neurologist Richard Gilmartin, called by the defense, carried a lot of weight with them. Gilmartin testified that the injuries could have occurred earlier and that Daytona’s symptoms could have appeared more gradually than the prosecution contended.

What this all boils down to is, if it happened the way the prosecution contends, only Katie Cornejo-Robertson could be responsible for her murder. However, if the defense is correct, there was a much longer gap between when Kalie was injured and when she stopped breathing, so several people could have been alone with Daytona long enough to have beaten her.

The final vote before the judge declared a mistrial was eight jurors for guilt and four for acquittal. Hopefully the prosecution does a better job establishing a timeline for Daytona Robertson’s injuries in the retrial, set to begin on June 8th, 2009.