A San Antonio woman is slated to face trial next week on charges of neglecting her 6-year-old daughter, who was found weighing a mere 19 pounds, an alarming case that has shocked the local community. Jennifer Marie Delgado, 36, is facing a possible sentence ranging from 5 years to life in prison if convicted on the count of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury with intent, as KSAT reports.
Delgado's trial is set to commence in the 227th District Court after a 2018 arrest warrant affidavit alleged that she brought her daughter to CHRISTUS Children's Hospital when the child turned blue. The child, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy was severely malnourished and had not been seen by a doctor since April 2017 despite being diagnosed with sleep apnea. The affidavit also stated the girl had not been using a bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machine for a month due to Medicaid issues, according to the affidavit cited by KSAT.
The neglected girl presented severe health neglect indicators: smelling of urine and feces, clothed in filthy attire, and suffering from severe tooth decay, bed sores, and hair loss, a situation that seems to have persisted for several months, as KSAT reported based on the hospital staff's assessments. The child's malnourished state was described as having "an overwhelming look of a cachectic malnourished bony child with little subcutaneous tissue or fatty tissue."
On further investigation, it was found that Delgado had not taken her daughter for medical care since August 2017, withholding the necessary clinical attention that the child's gastrostomy tube feeding condition required—the child was also diagnosed with a failure to thrive, complicating her basic survival needs, a dire state of affairs that led to her hospitalization for an extended period to foster her recovery. The relationship between Delgado and the victim was not specified in the affidavit, yet it underscores a haunting narrative of chronic neglect that ultimately necessitated police intervention and ensuing legal repercussion.
