Miranda Sipps (middle) died after her mother Denise Balbaneda (left) and stepdad Gerald Gonzales (right) allegedly failed to call 911 when she was seriously injured (Pictures: Atascosa County Jail/GoFundMe)
A young cheerleader died after her parents allegedly tried treating her injuries with smoothies and vitamins and neglected to seek timely medical care for her.
Miranda Sipps, 12, was kept at home by her mother, Denise Balbaneda, 36, and stepdad, Gerald Gonzales, 40, despite only being able to ‘flutter her eyes and move her hands a little bit over a four-day period’, said Atascosa County Sheriff David Soward on Wednesday.
The girl from Christine, Texas, had been injured on August 8 and was left lying on the floor of her home instead of taken to medical professionals.
Balbaneda and Gonzalez ‘tried a couple of remedies’ including a smoothie with vitamins, Soward said.
Miranda Sipps was a student at Jourdanton Jr High School and cheerleader (Picture: Facebook)
‘Of course, somebody that’s unconscious, that’s hard to do,’ said the sheriff, adding she was ‘primarily unconscious’.
They also got oxygen for her.
On Monday night, someone from the family’s home called 911 and Belbaneda, who was in a car with her daughter, was told by dispatchers to stop and allow an ambulance to take her to a hospital.
Miranda was ‘alive but unconscious’ and taken to Methodist Hospital Atascosa with life-threatening injuries, Soward stated on Facebook.
Denise Balbaneda reportedly finally called 911 when she saw her daughter had respiratory distress (Picture: Atascosa County Jail)
She was pronounced dead at the hospital just before 10pm that night.
An investigation found that Belbaneda finally called 911 when her daughter showed respiratory distress.
‘The parents failed to seek medical assistance for the girl, even though she was mentally and physically incapacitated and non-responsive,’ Soward stated.
Both parents were arrested without incident in their home on Tuesday and are being held at Atascosa County Jail on a $200,000 bond.
Gerald Gonzales has been charged in his stepdaughter’s death (Picture: Atascosa County Jail)
They have been charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury by omission and could face more charges.
Miranda was a student at Jourdanton Jr High School and was going to turn 13 later this month. Jourdanton and Christine are about 150 miles southwest of Austin.
‘She was taken from us far too soon in an unexpected way, leaving behind a legacy of love, laughter, and memories that we will cherish forever,’ stated her family in a GoFundMe page for her funeral expenses.
The nature of her injuries and how she sustained them were not immediately disclosed, with the sheriff saying that he was ‘not 100% sure’ and that her final autopsy report was pending.
‘Basically they thought they could nurse her back to health, and we do not think they wanted the attention that this would draw if the little girl was injured,’ Soward said of the parents, ‘Which is strangely ironic, but that was their line of thinking.’
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $5,000 as of Friday afternoon.
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