An initial cause of death has been determined as an eight-month-old infant died last week while caring for 47-year-old Deborah Lundstrom at her home in Springfield.
According to court documents, the autopsy concluded that the child died of asphyxiation or suffocation. The only visible injury is the "horizontal segmented line" on the front of the baby's neck.
The infant was in the car seat when he stopped breathing and the medical examiner concluded that it was possible that the car seat's chest clip prevented the child from being able to breathe, which eventually led to his suffocation. died.
According to the medical examiner, no other injury was found on the child, and it is believed that no force was applied to the injury on his neck.
In addition to the cause of death, court documents show that Lundstrom, who had been caring for children from her home at an unlicensed day care for 18 years, initially lied to police about leaving the children alone. Was. However, she later revealed that she regularly left children in her care - nine children under the age of three - alone when she went and picked up her 15-year-old son from school.
According to court documents, Lundstrom initially told investigators that on Wednesday, March 2, she loaded all nine children in their car seats into her van and took them to pick up her son from school. She told officers on her return from school, found that the child was not breathing and called 911.
Officers asked for more information about where each child was sitting in the car, which she was unable to provide. Additionally, investigators reportedly looked at motion-activated cameras and footage of her dropping and loading children into the car. She told officers that the cameras were "offline" during that time, but after some pressure by investigators, she gave them access to the footage and admitted that she had left the children alone at her home, however, she thought. that she had an 18-year-old daughter "on the property", although Lundström did not speak to her daughter, who was with her boyfriend at a nearby park before she left.
According to court documents, Lundstrom loaded the seven youngest children into their car seats, some of whom were asleep, and left the eldest two unharmed. He put them on the floor of his bedroom in front of the TV and left them for 12 minutes. When she returned, she saw that an infant was not breathing. She did infant CPR, tried to call the baby's mother, and called 911.
During an interview with police, Lundstrom admitted that she would leave the kids alone every week for the past month while she took her son to school. However, she said that they were not usually in their car seats and admitted that leaving them to sleep in car seats was not the safest thing to do because of what position children's bodies are in. She can't even remember if the buckle was fastened to the crotch child's car seat or whether it was just the check clip.
According to police, Lundstrom did not express any feelings or remorse even after being shown pictures of the dead child during the interview.
Lundstrom was arrested on Tuesday and charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter, which caused the death of the child, endangering the child's welfare and posing a great risk to that child. He was charged with eight counts of committing and operating a day care without a license. ,
Lundstrom is currently in the Green County Jail and still does not have an attorney listed to represent him. He will be produced in court on Monday.