A 3-year-old girl was found dead Friday outside a sober-living home in the unincorporated Riverside County community of Highgrove, and relatives said they believe the child’s mother — who suffers from mental health issues — killed the girl.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to the single-story residence in the 3000 block of Cannes Avenue, just north of Interstate 215, about 7 a.m. to investigate reports of a child down, Deputy Mike Vasquez said.
[symple_googlemap title=”3000 Cannes Avenue, Riverside, Ca” location=”Las Vegas, Nevada” height=”300″ zoom=”13″]
The victim, identified by family members as Zayla Rank, was found fatally injured in the backyard of the house, according to reports from the scene. Deputies detained the roughly five people in the home for questioning, including the girl’s mother, identified by relatives as Susan Rank.
“We’re not disclosing the manner of death right now, but I can say we have multiple people detained, and they’re being questioned by our detectives,” Vasquez told City News Service.
“We’re trying to piece it all together to figure out what happened,” he said.
Susan Rank’s relatives, including her mother, said the woman was born with a brain tumor and suffered through mental illness her whole life. They said Susan Rank tried to seek mental health treatment, but never got the help she needed.
“It took everything I had as her mother to get her to go into those doors to ask for help in the first place,” Susan Rank’s mother, Lori Wood, told ABC7. “And she did it, and they still sent her away.”
“She was the sweetest little baby,” she said of Zayla in an interview with CBS2.
Wood told CBS2 she was in the process of trying to obtain housing so she could get custody of Zayla. She said she had made appointments for her daughter in hopes of getting her mental-health treatment, and one of those appointments is on Monday.
“I think it’s a tragedy how people can go try to get mental health (treatment) and get shoved out the door without any help or consideration. It needs to be addressed. It really does,” she said.
Asked what Susan Rank told her after Zayla was found dead, Wood said, “She just said to me, she said, `I tried to get help. I tried to get help.”‘
A GoFundMe campaign initiated by Tracylyn Sharrit of Crestline, who identified herself as the victim’s aunt, included discussion of the mental health issues the toddler’s mother was facing.
Sharrit wrote on the page that Zayla’s mother was “mentally ill” and took the girl’s life, but didn’t say how.
“My sister is in deep mourning over the loss of her grandbaby, and the fact that it was at the hands of her mentally ill daughter weighs heavy on her heart,” Sharrit wrote. “Please pray for us to find peace in this tragic happening. Mental illness took the life our beautiful baby at the hand of a very mentally sick mother. If you can’t give funds, your prayers mean so much to our family.”
Sharrit said the family has no means to pay for funeral costs. They’re seeking $10,000 in donations via a GoFundMe page.
–City News Service