A mother trusted babysitter Marissa Tietsort to care for her 2-month-old baby while she was out. But the Wisconsin woman caused the baby in her care to die from blunt force trauma instead.
The mother dropped off the baby at Tietsort’s home around 4 p.m. Two hours later, she received a strange text from Tietsort where she informed her that she had been highlighted by a local media outlet as someone who had been charged with child abuse in an unrelated case, reported ABC News .
Tietsort then told the mom that she was not supposed to have any contact with children. She begged the mom not to tell anyone that she was caring for her son and her other child. Tietsort also is pregnant with her sixth child.
Something happened between the time when the mother dropped off the baby and returned to pick up the two children shortly after 9 p.m. When Tietsort realized the baby had passed away, she attempted to hide the death by returning the baby boy to his mom bundled up in a snowsuit and strapped into an infant car seat with a hat pulled down over his eyes. She claimed he was sleeping.
The mother believed the babysitter and took him with her to the laundromat. The babysitter, her boyfriend, and her own son then went to a hotel pool to swim, reported ABC News .
Marissa Tietsort, who is pregnant with her sixth child, is already facing child abuse charges involving another baby for whom she was caring. https://t.co/BxwJrkcuh4
— NBC 26 News (@NBC26) January 4, 2019
“[She] thought [the baby] was sleeping, as he would normally be sleeping at that time of the day,” an investigator wrote in a complaint.
While at the laundromat, she realized her baby wasn’t breathing. According to a criminal complaint about the incident, the mom told authorities that he was cold to the touch.
“His legs were rigid and remained bent at the knee,” the investigator said.
She administered CPR while her sister,who was with her at the time, called 911. After responding to the call, authorities tracked down Tietsort at the local hotel. She confessed to the detectives that the baby had passed away while in her care and she didn’t do anything to help him, ABC News shared.
“[She didn’t] check for a pulse, she did not reach out for help and she did not perform any resuscitation efforts,” the report stated. “Tietsort admitted that she put the [baby’s] lifeless body on the floor in the hallway of her home, dressed him in the snowsuit and then placed his body in the car seat with his blankets.”
When Tietsort’s boyfriend arrived at the home, she carried the baby’s car seat to her vehicle and she, her boyfriend, and her own son drioe to a local McDonald’s where they shared dinner.
An autopsy revealed that the baby had died from three separate blunt force injuries to the head.
