Background: The apartment building in Newton, Iowa, where Angelia Varner”s baby fell (Google Maps). Inset: Angelia Varner (Jasper County Sheriff’s Office).
An Iowa mother avoided prison time after her toddler fell out of a second-story window while she was in the parking lot.
Angelia Varner, 35, pleaded guilty to felony neglect of a dependent person on Monday, months after her youngest child, a 23-month-old, fell out of her apartment’s second-story window on Aug. 14. The child was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. As Law&Crime previously reported, Varner put her oldest child, a 9-year-old, in charge of her two younger children “for a few minutes” while she left the apartment and went out to the parking lot.
While Varner was away from her three children, Neighbors watched her youngest fall 12 feet from a window, police said.
Police said that the toddler suffered “abrasions and bruising” to her head but no life-threatening injuries. Inside the apartment, officers found a torn screen on the window where the toddler fell. The property’s landlord claimed Varner never requested it be fixed. Varner said she knew the screen was torn, and she left it open to “cool” the apartment.
Neighbors told police they often saw Varner’s three children “play at the open window and/or lean out of it.” They also saw the children playing unattended outside the apartment.
Varner was sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to one charge of felony neglect of a dependent person.
She also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of felony neglect of a dependent person in connection with an incident on Sept. 25. According to reporting by local news outlet KNIA/KRLS, Varner fell asleep in her bedroom after leaving the stove on. She closed the bedroom door and left her two younger children unattended while smoke from the oven filled the apartment. Her oldest child was found outside the apartment, trying to get someone to open the door. Varner was sentenced to the same probation term.
