Toddler Dies After Parents Tied Mattress and a Salt Bag Over His Crib

Keep Reading ↓

Toddler Dies After Parents Tied Mattress and a Salt Bag Over His Crib

A lot of parents have dealt with kids in cribs who are playing the escape game. Once those kiddos reach a certain age and figure out that they escape those crib confines with a few well-placed chubby feet and some ingenuity, it’s game over.

There are some products that are out there in the parenting world to help keep kids confined, like crib tents, or just giving up the fight all together and removing the crib rails to let the kids roam free. And unfortunately, one family got so tired of their child escaping that they decided to DIY a method to prevent their toddler from getting out of the crib. Only to have it end in tragedy.

See what these two parents did that killed their toddler in his crib.

Crib Death

Two-year-old Eoin Dwyer, from Pennsylvania, passed away on April 25 after his parents allegedly tied both an extra crib mattress and a 50-pound salt bag to the top of his crib with bungee cords in an attempt to keep the toddler from escaping out of his crib. Eoin’s father, Justin Dwyer, was in the room sleeping while his son died, because the toddler’s crib was also in the master bedroom.

According to police reports, the toddler’s mother, Courtney Stash, claimed she came home from work and found her son. Courtney called 911 and reported that she had found her son unresponsive, slumped over the railing in his crib. She told police that she had immediately taken him to the living room to perform CPR on him.

The Truth Comes Out

What Courtney and Justin did not tell the police, however, is what they had done to his crib. The police only discovered the truth after the Stash’s older son, who is 8 years old, told the police the truth: that every night, the parents would place a mattress over the crib and cover it with a Toy Story sheet to keep it in place. Then, on top of the mattress and sheet they would place a 50-pound bag of salt. After the toddler started pushing the mattress and salt bag off, the couple added bungee cords to secure the mattress in place so he couldn’t move it.

Police searched the home on April 28, they found all three items pointing to their guilt: the salt bag, the mattress, and the Toy Story sheet, along with noting that there were scratch marks consistent with bungee cord placement on the actual crib.

Formally Charged

adly, an autopsy also revealed the further truth about how the toddler had died. The official cause of death was determined to be asphyxia due to “entrapment between the crib and overlying twin mattress secured by bungee cording.”

Eoin’s parents were officially charged with involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, aggravated assault, and recklessly endangering another person as a result of their son’s death. Both parents are being held on bail set at $250,000 each.

Tell us your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to SHARE this post with your friends!