Disturbing video shows mom lying to cops after leaving her baby home alone to die in the US as she frolicked in Puerto Rico for 10 days (Video)

A video has shown the moment an American mother, Kristel Candelario, 32, was confronted by police officers after her 16-month-old daughter Jailyn was found starved to death surrounded in filth in June 2023.

In the video the negligent mother lied to the police that she found her baby girl dead in her crib when she woke up.

In actual fact, she abandoned her in her apartment for 10 days, allowing her to die of starvation and dehydration.

Candelario, who was sentenced to life in prison this week, was seen in police bodycam footage telling officers that her daughter had been ‘throwing up’ all week in June 2023.

In the shocking clip, she cooly told officers: ‘She was with no food, she was refusing.’]

As her daughter was starving to death, Candelario shared vacation snaps of her smiling on a beach, with the caption: ‘The time that is enjoyed is the true time lived.’

A medical examiner ruled that the infant had died of starvation and severe dehydration, and a prosecutor said the sight will ‘stick with me for many years to come’

Although she later pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and child endangerment, the new bodycam footage shows she initially lied to cops as they questioned her over her daughter’s sudden death.

As she claimed the toddler was ‘refusing food’ before she died, an officer asks her: ‘And how was she Wednesday and Thursday?’

‘She was refusing, maybe because she didn’t eat two days before,’ she responded, before shrugging her shoulders to feign confusion in the spine-chilling clip.

‘But that’s why I was scared, because I say, oh my God we have to go to the hospital because she doesn’t eat anything.’

In another picture taken from her cold-blooded holiday, Candelario donned jean shorts and a ‘Mandalorian’ Star Wars t-shirt as she appeared to visit a Star Wars theme park

Candelario, who didn’t appear upset or emotional over her daughter’s death, said the infant was looking ‘tiny’ and was ‘losing weight’, and continued to fabricate a story about being home the whole time.

‘This morning when I wake up she was asleep,’ she said. ‘She sleeps every day, 12 hours.’

‘She sleeps from 9pm to 9 or 10am, 12 hours, so this morning I was sleeping too, she never wake up.’

An officer interrupted her to ask what had happened the night before, to which the murderess said: ‘Last night she was crying a lot.

‘And I see one moment, when I was taking a shower, she was screaming like ‘Aaah’, I don’t know, probably she get in pain, maybe.’

‘I pick her up this morning and she look really, like dry,’ she continued, before she said a few phrases in Spanish.

At her sentencing this week, a judge condemned her actions in the strongest terms as the mom was sent behind bars for life without the possibility of parole.

County Common Pleas Court Judge Brendan Sheehan told Candelario she committed ‘the ultimate betrayal’ by leaving her daughter alone without food.

‘Just as you didn’t let Jailyn out of her confinement, so too you should spend the rest of your life in a cell without freedom,’ Judge Sheehan said.

‘The only difference will be, the prison will at least feed you and give you liquid that you denied her.’

Candelario, who has struggled with depression and related mental health issues, said she has prayed daily for forgiveness.

‘There’s so much pain that I have in regards to the loss of my baby, Jailyn,’ she said. ‘I’m extremely hurt about everything that happened.

‘I am not trying to justify my actions, but nobody knew how much I was suffering and what I was going through … God and my daughter have forgiven me.’

Strangely, she made the trips with her older daughter, and it is unclear why Candelario did not ask anyone to help her care for her child while she was traveling.

After 10 days of sunning herself on the beach and enjoying the local attractions, she returned to her home on June 16 to find her daughter not breathing.

Paramedics and Cleveland police tragically pronounced the one-year-old dead at the scene, and prosecutors said the child was discovered ‘on a liner soiled with urine and feces with soiled blankets.’

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, announcing the plea in February, said: ‘This case is one of those truly unimaginable cases that will stick with me for many years to come.

‘As prosecutors, it is our job to represent the victims and today we spoke on behalf of 16-month-old Jailyn – who is no longer with us – due to the selfish decisions her mother made.’

After the news of the horrific death made headlines, a neighbour also revealed that this was not the first time Candelario had left her baby daughter home alone.

An acquaintance told News5 Cleveland: ‘We keep telling her not to leave her by herself, not just me, my friend across the street too, but she always leaves her by herself.’

Another female neighbour, who was not identified, told CNN that Jailyn was ‘always a happy baby’ and was ‘always smiling.’

The neighbour’s daughter said there were ‘plenty of people’ around who could have watched the baby, saying: ‘She could have knocked on any of our doors and asked us to take care of Jailyn and we would have.’

‘When they told us the state they found her in, I was just heartbroken,’ the teenage neighbour told CNN.

Watch the interrogation of the callous mother here.