MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Two Mooresville parents were served with felony first-degree murder indictments at the Iredell County Detention Center following the death of their infant child from severe malnourishment, the sheriff said.
Kendal Lee Hayes, 34 and Glenn John Delgreco II, 33, were issued no bond on the new charges by Magistrate R. Imes.
The indictments follow a Sept. 2 presentation of evidence to an Iredell County grand jury, which incorporated autopsy findings from Wake Forest Medical Center. Medical examiners determined the infant’s cause of death was severe protein-calorie malnutrition due to caregiver neglect and ruled the death a homicide, the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office stated in a news release on Tuesday.
Detectives with the Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation into the infant’s death. Evidence collected by investigators indicated the infant had lost approximately one-third of its body weight since birth and suffered from severe malnourishment and dehydration. Detectives determined that despite significant and apparent signs of medical distress, the infant was not provided necessary medical treatment before dying.
Investigators established that Hayes and Delgreco lived in a Mooresville residence alongside the infant’s grandparents, Alice Loraine Evans and Thomas Virgil Evans. All four adults shared responsibility for the infant’s care, well-being and safety, the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office said. On June 11, deputies with the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office served all four suspects with outstanding warrants charging them with felony child abuse and aiding and abetting.
Channel 9’s Eli Brand spoke with a man who lives a few hundred feet from the home where the neglect allegedly took place.
Paul Zawada said he never spoke with the two parents that are charged personally, but says he’s seen other children on the property.
“They would have little kids running around in this lot out here,” Zawada said. “Half the time they wouldn’t have clothes on.”
Those are just some of the things he said he saw at the home on Brawley School Road where the sheriff’s office says Delgreco and Hayes allegedly neglected their child to the point of the three-month old’s death.
The Iredell County sheriff says the case started in May when CPR had to be performed on the little girl before she was taken to the hospital where she died.
Both Delgreco and Hayes have been charged with murder.
“There’s a lot more neglect than there is abuse and I think it’s a lot more invisible,” said Bea Coté, the founder of Impact Plus Abuse Prevention Services. She says neglect is a bigger problem than people realize and has devastating impacts.
“We take neglect very seriously but the community doesn’t often see it because it doesn’t make headline like abuse may,” Coté said.
Zawada says he is devastated this happened so close, and that it happened at all.
“It’s a very well to do area. It shouldn’t happen anywhere,” he said. “The area doesn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t happen anywhere. Period.”
Both the grandparents of the little girl have since posted bond.
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