Two parents remain locked up, accused in their seven-year-old daughter's death. Police said the little girl was severely underweight.
Content warning: This story contains disturbing details.
MIDWEST CITY, Okla. (KFOR) — Two parents remain locked up, accused in their seven-year-old daughter's death. Police said the little girl was severely underweight.
"Unfortunately, we're seeing this far too often," said Joe Dorman, CEO of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
Dorman was reacting to new court documents detailing a disturbing case of deadly child neglect.
On August 2, Midwest City police got a call about a seven-year-old girl.
At around 9 a.m., Lisa Mitchell and Anthony Yonko, allegedly woke up to find their daughter sick and needing to go to the hospital.
At around 11:28 a.m., the parents arrived at the St. Anthony's Midwest Hospital by personal car, with their daughter wrapped up in a blanket.
Doctors noted the girl was "wrapped in a blanket," "extremely malnourished weighing only 25 pounds" and showed signs "of rigor mortis (sic) and possible injuries internal and external." When working on the child, the doctor said "numerous amounts of black and dark red secretions came from the child's mouth when pushing on her stomach area."
"I suspect this child's entire life, the child was not receiving appropriate care and treatment," said Dorman.
Yonko allegedly told investigators, a few days prior, the child "weighed about 50 pounds and was completely healthy" and they were giving her "crackers and soup because she possibly had the flu" but they had not taken her to the doctor.
"No one gets that malnourished and loses that much weight," said Dorman.
Dorman said, although rare, Oklahoma sees 10 to 40 child deaths like this each year.
"The child may have been isolated and kept locked up," said Dorman. "It's easy for parents to isolate their children and keep them out of society's eyes."
Investigators said the father changed his story multiple times. He initially said a friend took them to them to the hospital "but he did not know his friend's name or phone number." Detectives said the friend was actually Yonko's brother, who told police he "drove away from the area because he was afraid and needed to get to work."
Dorman said by Oklahoma law, any individual is a mandatory reporter.
