An Indiana mother who left her six-month-old son to die in a horrendous rat-infested home will not face prison time.
Angel Schonabaum, 29, was sentenced Thursday to serve three years of probation under an agreement that gave her credit for time served of one year, the Evansville Courier & Press reports.
She will also be required to undergo a mental health evaluation and follow and recommended treatment, according to Law & Crime.
Angel had initially pleaded not guilty to felony child neglect charges stemming from the September 2023 incident in which police found her young son suffering from more than 50 rat bites to his forehead, cheek and nose, but changed her plea in late September- just days before she was scheduled to go before a jury.
The infant’s father, David Schonabaum, 32, meanwhile, was convicted in September of child neglect of the baby and two other children inside their Evansville home.
Angel Schonabaum, 29, was sentenced Thursday to serve three years of probation after leaving her six-month-old son to die in a rat-infested home
Her husband, David Schonabaum, 32, was convicted of child neglect in September and was sentenced to serve 16 years behind bars, while her sister, Delania Thurman, 25, pleaded guilty to two counts of neglect of a dependent and was sentenced to serve two years probation
Prosecutors have said David called the Evansville Police Department on September 3, 2023, and reported that he awoke to find his baby boy ‘covered in blood’ and claimed the boy’s fingers appeared to have been ‘chewed off.’
When officers arrived at the scene, they found the infant in a bloody bassinet about three feet from where his parents were sleeping in a room filled with half-eaten food and rat feces.
Detectives wrote that there was a ‘large amount of blood’ inside the bassinet, along with a ‘boppy pillow’ and a blanket that were both ‘covered in blood,’ Law & Crime reports.
The child’s diaper disposal container also had ‘blood smeared all over it’ and what appeared to be a series of rodent foot prints left in blood.
‘All four of (the victim’s) fingers and thumb on his right hand were missing the flesh from the top of them, exposing fingertip bones,’ Detective Jonathan Helm wrote in an affidavit, describing the damage the baby sustained overnight.
‘The damage to (the victim’s) index and pinky fingers were the most severe,’ he added, noting the appendages ‘were missing the flesh halfway down each finger.’
Authorities responded to the Schonabaum’s home on September 3, 2023 and found the baby boy in a bloody bassinet about three feet from where his parents were sleeping in a room filled with half-eaten food and rat feces
An affidavit describes the clutter and trash detectives observed both inside and outside the home after arriving at the scene – where they said they found several discarded food items inside the victim’s room
First responders immediately tried treating the infant and were able to stabilize him enough to bring him to a local hospital, from where he was airlifted to another hospital in Indianapolis for more specialized treatment.
Hospital records provided to police shows that the doctors described the infant’s condition as being ‘near fatal,’ saying his blood oxygen level was at just 69 percent and he required a blood transfusion after almost going into shock.
Doctors also described how the boy was missing skin on his fingers, exposing bone on all five fingertips of his right hand, and suffered bites to his arms, legs and feet.
‘From what the doctors and nurses told detectives, [he was] very near to death,’ Evansville PD Sgt. Anna Gray told WEHT when asked about the boy’s condition.
‘The child had lost so much blood that the child actually had to have blood transfusions,’ she said. ‘Several fingers had to be amputated.’
When she was later asked how the baby’s parents could have allowed such horrors, Gray replied: ‘Their excuse was that they did not hear the child cry.
‘The home was overwhelmed with rodents,’ she added of the domicile, which detectives wrote contained clutter and trash like discarded food items left inside the victim’s room – and also allegedly housed four other small children.
‘It’s kind of one of those situations where they were just not paying attention,’ she continued in the department’s official statement.
Evansville PD Sgt. Anna Gray said the boy’s parents (pictured) ‘were just not paying attention’
But it was later revealed that the Indiana Department of Child Services began conducting twice-weekly visits to the family’s home in April 2023, when a caseworker noted that the house at that point was littered with trash, animal feces and dirty dishes.
The caseworker, though, claimed the condition of the home was ‘slowly improving’, and no action was sought against either of the parents.
Just a few days before the baby’s near-death experience, another DCS caseworker also traveled to the home and spoke with Angel’s sister Delania Thurman, 25, who had moved in with her children several weeks before.
She reported that the home only had a ‘normal amount of mice.’
The caseworker added that upon being questioned about what appeared to be bite marks on one of the kids’ feet, she denied wounds were caused by rodents.
All of the children have since been placed in foster care, including the infant, once he was released from the hospital.
Meanwhile, David has been sentenced to serve 16 years behind bars on felony child neglect charges, and Thurman, the boy’s aunt, pleaded guilty to two counts of neglect of a dependent and was sentenced to serve two years probation.
