A Chelsea woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of her three-year-old son and was sentenced the same day to four to six years in state prison, followed by three years of probation.
Jennifer Prudencio, 28, admitted to one count of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of reckless endangerment of a child. Her son, Yael Guardado-Prudencio, was found dead at the family’s Spencer Avenue apartment on the morning of April 7, 2024. He was three years old.
Prudencio entered the plea without an agreement. Prosecutors declined to reach one, saying the case carried aggravating factors that warranted a sentence above the standard guidelines. Superior Court Judge Joshua Wall imposed the four to six year term. The sentencing was reported by Court TV and by WHDH, which covered the change of plea.
What she admitted
Yael had hemophilia and a seizure disorder. In the days before he died he had been vomiting blood, and he had fallen during a seizure and opened a wound on his face that was not healing.
On the evening of April 6, 2024, Prudencio left him at home in the care of his two brothers, who were eight and seven. She went to a bar in Revere, and afterward went to her boyfriend’s home in Somerville rather than returning to Chelsea.
Through the night the eight-year-old texted his mother that his little brother was unwell and vomiting repeatedly. One message, sent at about 1 a.m., included a video of the child. Prudencio replied that she would be home soon. She came home roughly nine hours later and found Yael dead.
Prosecutors told the court that toxicology testing found undetectable levels of the boy’s medication in his system, and that the family had been to the doctor shortly before about adjusting his anti-seizure prescription.
The Department of Children and Families took custody of the two older boys, who have a different father than Yael. This account does not name them. They were children when this happened, they are children now, and the eight-year-old spent that night trying to get an adult to come home.
What the defense argued
Prudencio’s attorney, Peter Marano, asked the court for leniency. He described his client as “a child in an adult body” and pointed to her own history of abuse and trauma. She was 25 when her son died and 28 when she was sentenced.
That argument did not persuade the prosecution to negotiate, and it did not keep her out of state prison. It is on the record because a sentencing hearing is where the whole of a person is supposed to be weighed, and a court that heard the state’s case also heard that one.
How the case moved
Prudencio was arraigned in Chelsea District Court on April 10, 2024, on charges of manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child, and pleaded not guilty. Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said at the time: “The death of someone so young is a tragedy beyond words. My heart goes out to all who knew and loved this young boy, and to the police and emergency services personnel who responded to the scene that sad morning.”
She was held on $100,000 bail. A week later, appearing by video from the South Bay House of Correction, she asked a Suffolk Superior Court judge to lower it. Judge Christopher Belezos refused. Assistant District Attorney Audrey Mark handled the case for the Commonwealth.
The case then took nearly two and a half years to reach a disposition. That is a long time in the life of a seven-year-old and an eight-year-old.
The part that is not a court story
Two things in this record sit outside the criminal case, and both belong to Chelsea rather than to the courthouse.
The first is medical. A three-year-old with hemophilia and a seizure disorder is a child with a care plan, a prescribing physician and, ordinarily, a set of people who notice when he misses an appointment or runs out of medication. The court heard that his medication was undetectable in his system. How a medically complex child stays connected to that care, in a city where most households rent and most residents were born in another country, is a question no sentencing answers.
The second is who was in the apartment. The adult left. The eight-year-old did what he could, which was to text and to send a video and to wait. That he was the emergency response available to his brother that night is the fact in this case that should be hardest for the city to put down.
A note on this account
We were not in the courtroom. What is reported here comes from the coverage of the plea and sentencing by Court TV and WHDH, from the Boston Globe’s reporting on the April 2024 bail hearing, and from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s own statement at the time of the arraignment. Where those accounts differ in detail we have used what more than one of them carries.
Anyone with a correction, or with the court’s own sentencing documents, can write to [email protected] and we will update this.