Law&Crime Sidebar - Diabetic Girl’s Mom, Dad Neglected Her Until She Died: Cops

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Alice Bredhold, 12, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2020. Since then, her school nurse made multiple reports to the Department of Child Services in Indiana, expressing concern that Alice’s blood sugar was consistently at dangerous levels. Alice died from complications of diabetes on July 4. Her mother, Ashley Bredhold, and father, Brent Bredhold, reportedly did not monitor if and when Alice was taking her insulin and told police they had run out of supplies, despite there being unopened boxes of insulin pumps in their home. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the disturbing neglect allegations with prosecutor Dave Aronberg.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/lctakeover to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A little girl trying to learn to live with diabetes did not get the help that she needed from her parents. That's according to prosecutors in Indiana who have charged them both with neglect of a dependent resulting in her death. We are breaking down the case of 12-year-old Alice Breadhold with prosecutor Dave Aaronberg. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. 12-year-old Alice Breadholt. She was found dead in her Evansville, Indiana home on July 4th,

and this is where she had been living with her mom and dad, Ashley and Brent, two siblings, 16-year-old brother, three-year-old sister, and authority. say there are only two people to blame for this her parents they have each been charged with neglect of a dependent causing death that's our understanding this is a level one felony why were they charged this way well in 2020 Alice was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and she was supposed to be managing it by taking a long acting insulin shot before going to bed every night plus a short acting insulin dose before every meal but apparently that wasn't happening

Hey, everybody. I want to quickly thank Upside for sponsoring today's Law and Crime YouTube Takeover. So Upside is a free app that gets you cash back on gas and groceries. And every time I pump gas now, I can use Upside. I mean, why not get cash back when you fill up your tank, right? And yes, this is actual real cashback. It's money that appears in your upside app that you can transfer straight into your bank account. So once you have the upside app, you claim an offer for whatever you're buying an upside. You pay as usual using a debit or credit card. You follow the steps on the app and you get paid. And you can use upside at places like Shell, Exxon, Mobile, 7-11 Taco Bell. That's just to name a few, by the way.

So to find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description to download upside or scan the QR code on screen and use our promo code LC takeover and get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code LC takeover for an extra 25 cents back on your first gallon of gas. This is a very tough case. It's going to make you angry. It's going to make you frustrated. But we are going to get into some very tough details in this affidavit of probable cause that was filed. Not easy to hear this, but thankfully, we have someone here who's going to help break it down for us, explain the law, explain the circumstances. I'm joined right now by prosecutor Dave Arrenberg, the Palm Beach County,

state attorney, my good friend, good to see you, sir. Thanks so much for coming on. Jesse, great to be back with it. I wish it was under better circumstances with a case like this. But I have to imagine that when you're prosecuting cases about child abuse or children who are hard. armed or killed, those must not only be the toughest cases to actually handle, but I also have to imagine they're maybe the toughest to prosecute, but some of the most important to prosecute because you have to set an example here, right? There's, especially with a charge like this, which is a little bit more broad, and it doesn't tolerate any kind of behavior. There are also the kind of cases that resonate the most in the community for parents of

children. They see this child as one of their own, and they relate to. it. Remember the Timothy Ferreter case? The Ferreter case with a boy in the box that was covered here and everywhere. And we heard so much of people in the community. So there's a lot of pressure on prosecutors to get it right and to pursue the charges to the full extent of the law and try to get the maximum penalty. So there's a lot of pressure on prosecutors here not to screw this one up. I'm going to get back to that because of what they're charged with. But I want to go through some of the details here. So a detective with the Evansville Police Department and wrote up this affidavit of probable cause for the court.

And it lays out the allegations of neglect in excruciating detail. On July 4th, when Alice was found dead at home, apparently her mom said her father, Brent, was out of town for work. And the day after Alice died, Brent posted on Facebook, quote, I've never had to write anything so painful and I wish I never had to. Last night, my little girl, Alice, passed away. We don't know why or how.

We're making arrangements for her funeral now, and let everyone know the details once we have them. No parent should ever have to bury their child. Well, that's true, but the problem is knowing what we seem to know now, that post is especially chilling because the responding officer at the breadhold home had indicated to this detective that Alice might have died because of something related to her diabetes. So he questioned Ashley, the mother, about her daughter's condition. The document states, quote,

Ashley said the victim used to use an insulin pump, but they ran out of pods and were waiting for supplies. Ashley said the victim should have had a Dexcom G6 sensor on her arm that would transmit her blood sugar levels to her and her Brent's phones. She said the device was dead and the sensor had fallen off the victim's arm so they hadn't been getting the readings or alarms when the victim's blood sugar got too low or too high. So the problem with that is, investigators said they found two new sensor units still freshly in their packaging unopened inside the home. authority say Ashley said Brent left for his work trip on July 2nd on July 3rd Ashley was at her own job all day she came home at around 6 p.m. but was called back to work

didn't get back until one in the morning Alice and the three-year-old were both still awake so Ashley reportedly told him to go to bed but didn't check if Alice took her insulin shot or not document reads quote Ashley said it was normal for the victim to sleep late into the day because she stayed up late at night Ashley said they had plans to go to the river to watch the fireworks with her parents that evening, so she sent her son into the victim's bedroom around 1,500 hours, that's 3 p.m. to get her up. The victim had not been seen or heard from all that day. Ashley's son said the victim appeared to be sleeping on the floor in her bedroom and wouldn't really wake up. By her own admission, it wasn't until around two hours later, so now 5 p.m.,

that Ashley went to check on Alice. It says, quote, Ashley said when she called her name, she opened her eyes, but Other than that, she wasn't very responsive. Ashley said she feared the victim had high blood sugar. Since the Dexcom wasn't working, remember they had these other units, though. Ashley said she had to use a finger stick to get a reading. Ashley said the victim's blood sugar was extremely high, so she gave her 15 units of medicine. So, Dave, I can understand a child sleeping late. I don't think it quite adds up here.

There were so many chances for these parents to help their child. there's a school nurse who reported that this is not a one-time event. This is not a one-off, that this child was neglected repeatedly. There were so many incidents. You mentioned one where the monitor was found. There were two working monitors found in the box untouched, so they're blaming the monitor for not working. That's garbage.

And then you have other instances where the parents just seemed to ignore signs that their child was in trouble. They were told. So if this was an accident or one-time thing, I think prosecutors would incorporate that in their charge. But they're going for this very serious charge, a first-degree felony, because of the repeated violations here. Well, let's talk about that. For putting everything to the side, and we're going to get to it, these other alleged instances of neglect,

if you just take that fact pattern into it itself, would that be enough to convict them on this charge? Or you could say there's reasonable doubt as to what they really knew what was going on. Well, if the only thing we knew was that the child was on the floor of her bedroom for two hours. they didn't check that alone is probably not enough there needs more if they were good parents and then the child oh we just thought she was sleeping that alone i don't think would result in a charge okay that's not it here because even though alice appeared to be in a very critical state ashley allegedly left the victim in her room only checked on her quote a few times after she gave her the medicine ashley said she last checked on the victim about an hour before

she had her son called 911 so that's 7 p.m and actually said just prior to the 911 phone call. She went into the bedroom, found the victim still on the floor. She said the victim's body was cold to the touch that she didn't appear to be breathing. Ashley was emotional and said, I feel like an effing idiot. I should have taken her to the hospital when I found her. So Dave, there's an acknowledgement here by that statement if it comes in that she realizes that she could be a fault here. That's right. And it's not an intentional crime. But bad things that happen can result in criminal charges even when they're not intended. So you're talking about recklessness here, neglect. Those are all things that can rise to level of a crime. And that is why prosecutors are

charging her here. I want you to keep that in mind because I do want to ask you later about why they weren't charged with murder or something else, like, you know, whether it's manslaughter or something else. Just keep that in mind. Because now is when the probable cause statement really delves into the investigation that this detective did. And he spoke to all sorts of medical professionals those who personally interacted with Alice to get an idea of just how much her parents knew and when they knew? Because Ashley apparently told the detective

that Alice had to go to the ER the previous October for diabetic complications. Now, the treating physician put in the notes, quote, I strongly suspect this is because the patient was not getting insulin routinely as prescribed at home. Patient admits to me that she often forgets to check her blood sugar before eating. Parents admit to me that the patient is only partial

supervised at home for insulin administration the nurses did try to work the victim to see if she understood her insulin dosing and it was clear that she did not understand how to do the calculations herself which again would be important because that's why you have parents who would check this out a follow-up appointment found that alice's blood sugar was still too high so the family was referred to a pediatric psychologist who could help them work on insulin management and they went a few times but then quote forgot to schedule when alice was in school the school nurse, as Dave was saying, helped monitor her blood sugar, taking it every morning before Alice ate breakfast at school, then again before lunch. And the document says, quote, Ashley said there were issues they had with the victim's blood sugar being too high at school. So, DCS was contacted. That's the Department of Children's Services. And speaking of child services, DCS was called in after Alice was found dead. It makes sense, right? What did they know? Well, two caseworkers found that every room in the house was full of trash, that there were insects present. They removed the other two children, the 16-year-old and the three-year-old, from the home.

The detective had DCS sent him all the assessments and reports they had on Alice, and they sent six assessments dating back to January of 2021 all from the school. On February 29, 2024, the school nurse contacted DCS and relayed the following concerns. It's quote, Alice is type 1 diabetic, has elevated blood sugars on and off all year. This week, her blood sugar has been over 500 on Monday and Tuesday and Thursday. It was over 400 yesterday. The blood sugar is supposed to be between 80 and 120. This is life-threatening.

The father is on the way to pick up. The dad did not say if he was going to take her to the doctor, has Dexcom so the parents can see sugar levels, but they send her to school anyway. The child said her dad knew she was elevated this morning and that she had Cotonous in her urine, but he sent her to school anyway. Wow. According to a report from April of 2024, Brent had dropped Alice off at school despite knowing her blood sugar level was off the charts. The nurse said Alice's monitor was beeping, which means the info should be relayed to the parents' phones. Quote, this is a chronic issue and Mr. and Mrs. Bredhold failed to correct this before she came to school.

Mr. Mrs. Breadhold have been talked to about her diabetes, but they do not respond. The victim sleeps in class every day. Sometimes there is a concern that is unknown if she is sleeping because she is tired or in a diabetic coma. So, Dave, there's one thing to say, you have knowledge, but they had resources to help them. And this was a chronic issue. This is not a one-off. This is not a one-time accident. The fact that they've been warned again and again.

And really, all they had to do is to make sure she had two shots a day. And that's it, right? Just monitor her and have two shots a day. They couldn't even do the minimum of that. They couldn't even go to their appointments with a psychologist to help them treat their daughter more properly. And yet they're claiming that they were shocked that this happened? No, that's not a defense to say that, wow, I'm surprised and I love my daughter. So that's what prosecutors are looking.

They're looking at how many chances do you give parents to do the right thing. point it's not a mistake it's negligence who is to blame more than the not more than the parents but who is also to blame is it Department of Child Services is it the school because they were getting warning signs about this too school nurse looks like a hero here I mean she was trying to speak up she was giving the right alert she was saying something after she saw something DCS is always a target because those agencies no matter what state you're in always underfunded the workers are overloaded with cases in the

And the people most of fault are the parents. They're the guardians. They're the ones who are supposed to handle this situation. And also, the fact is that they only had to implement two shots a day and just make sure the monitor was working properly, not leave them in the box. But how difficult is it for the Department of Child Services and whatever state there is for them to get involved,

remove the children from the home, at what point? Because if they have assessments since 2021, I know that there's a high burden, right, to remove children from their parents, right, but a high legal burden, right? But when you look at this, you could say Monday morning quarterback looking back, but it seemed to me there was a lot of more warning signs for them. Oh, yeah, and there may be some civil lawsuits, although government workers have immunity up to a certain point. Right.

You know, the DCS people, yeah, there should be an investigation, how yet another child slipped through the cracks. But really, the fault here, and that's why prosecutors got involved with these parents. I mean, that's why they took away the other kids. Now, it looks like the other kids weren't being abused, but if you did want to take away Alice, it is a high burden. We try not to remove kids from their parents unless there are some egregious circumstances, and it turns out it was egregious here. You mentioned the school nurse, because according to the school nurse who had been helping treat Alice's diabetes ever since the little girl was diagnosed, she reported Alice's potentially life-threatening situation to DCS on February 29th.

And that week, Alice had come to school with elevated blood sugar for four straight days. According to the affidavit, DCS was contacted again on April 15th, 2024, when the victim showed up to school with a blood sugar greater than 600. According to DCS records, they closed the assessment the nurse made in February as unsubstantiated on April 16, 2024. That was one day after the nurse called the new report in. but the nurse says after she made her report she never heard from DCS again and assumed they had a case open. July 6th, an autopsy was done on Alice, and the forensic pathologist's opinion was that she died from diabetic ketosis. Alice's body showed the evidence of her constant high blood sugar, according to the pathologist's report. The victim's liver weighed 3,550 grams, when a normal adult, female liver, should weigh approximately 1,400 grams.

The victim's blood sugar was greater than 500 at the time of her death. Brent and Ashley Bredth, they were arrested on August 7th, charged with neglect of a dependent causing death. They're both being held in jail in $100,000 cash bond. Again, I want to go now talk about the law on this. Why are they not charged with murder? Because I'm thinking about that or some other maybe manslaughter, but part of me also wonders is there an intent here?

Because couldn't you make the argument if they know how serious her daughter's issue was? and maybe they wanted her out of the way. What better way than not to treat her? Now, it might be me jumping to conclusions, but it's hard, I'm struggling to understand how you just ignore this unless you wanted the death of your daughter. As a prosecutor, you only charge what you can prove

beyond a reasonable doubt, and you'd have to have some real evidence to show that they intended this to happen to charge them with murder. That's a high burden, and if you'd overcharge this case, you can lose the whole thing. So right now, prosecutor's only going to charge where they could prove, which is neglect of a child that you know it has diabetes in this case.

Now, the manslaughter charge is interesting. They could eventually charge it under the more serious manslaughter statute, like involuntary manslaughter. I'm not sure, though, if that's going to give you, based on this statute, more time in prison. Now, involuntary manslaughter would be like shooting in the air on New Year's Eve and the bull comes down and kills something. It's reckless, reckless. It's so reckless that it was like, to be expected, that someone would be killed. And that could happen here. Again, I didn't look up Indiana law on this in terms of what is the sentencing range,

but presuming for a moment if manslaughter was a more serious crime than this level one felony, although I don't know, you could say you could expect this to happen. What did you think was going to happen? Right. And that's the question is whether or not that is a more serious crime. Because this is a serious when you're entrusted with a child who has a serious condition and you just decide that other things are more important. how do you defend this because my understanding is these kind of child neglect charges are very broad right the elements of it are pretty easy to prove it mean correct me if I'm wrong here so how would you

defend it you tried to show that they did the best they could they were overwhelmed you know they they were struggling that's why there was trash around and they were trying because they love their daughter and you put them on the stand say we love our daughter we made mistakes mistakes should not put them in prison they compound the tragedy by taking away their other children forcing them into prison. Now, obviously, I'm a prosecutor. I'm playing devil-davik in here. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. And this is such a gross case that I think that the jurors will hate these parents because they're going to put themselves in these parents' shoes and say, you couldn't even give two shots a day and make sure the battery wasn't working in the

monitor. You have two others in the box unopened. Yeah, if this isn't neglect, I don't know what would be. Is this the kind of case where you might see a deal because you don't want to take this to trial if you're them? Very possibly. Now, remember, there's a privilege when you're a married couple that the spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other. In fact, there are spousal privilege where you can't even get communications between the two of them, because otherwise you would want to flip one of them, the lesser of the two that's culpable.

But here, because there's marital privilege, spousal privilege, you're going to have to go after both of them, and yeah, maybe they'll cut a deal. But this is where I brought up at the beginning where there's going to be a lot of pressure in the community to hold these parents accountable because there's probably people who are galled by what happened. They want justice.

They don't want anyone to get off with a slap on the wrist. I know they're innocent until proven guilty. I'm a lawyer. I get it. I will just tell you, this little girl didn't deserve this, and she should be alive today. This is a tragedy. This is awful, and we'll see which way it gets prosecuted.

Dave Arrenberg, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you, Jesse. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast. podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber.

Let's meet you next time.