A woman and her boyfriend were convicted on Tuesday for killing her three-year-old daughter, who froze to death in a freezer at the couple’s apartment in Napa, California.
27-year-old Sarah Lynn Krueger and her 29-year-old boyfriend, Ryan Scott Warner, were found guilty of first-degree murder with unusual circumstance of abuse in the death of Kayleigh Slusher, who was found dead from various degrees of injuries. The most ruinous injury resulted in a burst in her small intestine.
Special case of murder
The two were also convicted of torture of a child below the age of eight leading to her death.
The two rulings were made Tuesday. Sentencing is to take place on July 27. The couple risks life imprisonment.
“The case really an emotional one,” the Deputy District Attorney of Napa Valley Kecia Lind, who jointly prosecuted the case along with Lance Hafenstein Deputy District Attorney said. “It was horrifying what transpired at that apartment that led to her death,” reported People.
The investigation of the murder case started in 2014 when the Napa district police received an emergency 911 call from a friend of the couple in February to examine Kayleigh’s well-being. The friend explained to the police that he went to visit the couple at their apartment the night before he found out that Kayleigh was dead.
Account of a witness
“He did not want to be part of it so he asked them to inform the police,” Lind said. “They refused to call the police so he decided to call himself”. Inside the apartment, police recovered Kayleigh’s body lying in her bed. She was almost frozen, police said.
“She was inside the freezer for several hours,” Lind said.
“Her body was very cold when the police officers found her. We don’t actually know how long she had been in the freezer”.
Arrest of the couple
Linda further said that Lind, Krueger, and Warner had gone into hiding earlier that morning before the arrival of the police, but the pair was later arrested the next day when a woman spotted them in a restaurant.
Lind said police officers found searches for the most densely populated cities in the U.S. on Krueger’s cell phone.
The result of an Autopsy revealed that the little girl had about 41 recognizable injuries to the outside of her body. The couple told the police they thought Kayleigh died after drinking a poisonous substance.
Warner’s attorney Mervin Lernhart Jr argued there was no proof that the accused tortured the child or knew anything about the abuse.
