A woman has been sentenced to prison in the death of an infant nearly three years ago at at unlicensed day care in suburban Philadelphia.
Lauren Landgrebe, 50, of Upper Southampton had pleaded guilty in Bucks County to involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in the August 2019 death of 11-month-old Victoria Watson.
Prosecutors said she left the child strapped in a car seat on her dining room table. Landgrebe had then left the room and spent the next two hours outside near her swimming pool while the baby was alone in the car seat, according to the criminal complaint. She returned to find the baby unresponsive.
At the time of the incident Landgrebe was watching eight children at the day care she operated out of her home on the 1500 block of Rosebud Road, prosecutors said.
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On Tuesday, President Judge Wallace Bateman chastised her for what he called the “callousness" of her actions as he sentenced to one day less than a year to one day less than two years in jail, followed by 10 years’ probation.
Defense attorney Louis Busico called the sentence “in the interest of justice” but said he recognized the pain of the family. The child's parents and other relatives told the court of the joy she brought them in her short life and the grief they have wrestled with in the years since her death.
“There is forever a piece of us that is missing that will never be replaced,” Victoria’s mother, Marita Watson said.
