A Florida resident has managed to avoid incarceration despite leaving her 3-month-old daughter outside overnight, resulting in severe, life-changing injuries for the child.

Kelly Ward, aged 23, entered a plea of no contest to charges of child neglect causing significant bodily harm. A judge chose to withhold adjudication, as confirmed by the Volusia County Clerk of Circuit Court to Law&Crime. Consequently, Ward has been sentenced to 48 months of probation, accompanied by conditions such as undergoing a substance abuse evaluation and completing a parenting class sanctioned by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Details of whether this plea resulted from an agreement with the prosecution remain unclear.

The incident reportedly took place on the night of November 7, 2023, when temperatures in Florida dipped into the mid-50s, according to law enforcement officials.

At around 10 p.m., Ward, who was expecting another child at the time, returned to her residence in DeLand, Florida, with her intermittent boyfriend, as per an affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime. This boyfriend was not the biological father of the 3-month-old but was the father of Ward’s unborn child.

Records suggest that between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. the following day, the couple left the house with the infant at least once. The household included nine occupants, among them Ward’s mother, as noted in court documents.

The residents are said to have had a disagreement about whether Ward’s boyfriend could stay the night. One of them told police that he gave her a “weird ‘vibe,’” and she believed “something was possibly going on with him and children.” But he did stay over that night, with the plan being for him to take Ward to a doctor’s appointment the following morning.

Court records show no criminal charges having been filed against the boyfriend relating to this incident in Volusia County.

In the four-hour period between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., Ward, her baby, and her boyfriend were outside one or more times. The child being out there confused multiple of the home’s residents, given that the temperature was in the mid-50s and “too cold for the baby to be outside.”

According to the affidavit, the baby went to sleep between 2 and 3 a.m. on Nov. 8, 2023, but in a frantic state – “crying and screaming” and seeming to be “having night terrors due to swinging her arms in her sleep.”

At about 6 a.m. that morning, one resident said she woke up “and saw [the boyfriend] standing in the hallway just standing there.” He was reportedly not holding the baby or talking to anyone. When another resident woke up around 8 a.m., they noticed the child was “lethargic.”

The baby “would not open her eyes and appeared very pale,” she added.

Others, however, reported to police that the child was crying in a normal manner when they woke up and “everything appeared to be normal.” Ward’s boyfriend checked on the baby, and Ward herself rushed to get ready for her doctor’s appointment, for which she had woken up too late, the affidavit added.

Ward and the boyfriend returned around 11 a.m., but in the meantime, Ward’s mother checked on the child. The baby was “wheezing” and not as “fussy” as usual when her diaper was being changed, she said. The infant also had bruises on her abdomen, the affidavit states, but no one called 911 until nearly 11:40 a.m.

Scratch marks were also found on the child, and some of the residents, including Ward, told police they believed one of the home’s two dogs stepped on the child when trying to cross the bed. Responding EMS workers were skeptical.

Per the court document, they “did not believe the dog could have caused the bruising and requested law enforcement to respond.” The dog that Ward said stepped on the child was a chihuahua, weighing “7.58 pounds with a .16-pound harness on.”

Ward and the boyfriend both gave separate accounts to police about what happened, and both acknowledged that “they were the last two individuals” with the baby before she was placed in her bassinet that night. The boyfriend described Ward as inattentive and preferring to be elsewhere than with her daughter.

Ward gave her own account, but investigators said they found inconsistencies in her statements.

More than a month after Ward’s child’s injuries were first reported, as law enforcement continued their investigation, they asked Ward to call the boyfriend and let them listen in. During this phone call, she asked him what happened with the child in the moments she was not present, “even if it was by accident.”

“During the conversation, [the boyfriend] became irritated and stated he will not take anger management again,” the affidavit states. “It should be noted, [the boyfriend] had to take anger management after his one-month old daughter’s arm was broken in a different case that occurred in Polk County Florida.”

“Kelly then told [the boyfriend] that she was going to do a lie detector test, and asked [him] if he would, which he stated he would not do one,” the court document goes on. “[The boyfriend] told Kelly that he was told that the lie detector test is not admissible in court. Kelly then told [him] that she knows he would never hurt [the baby] on purpose,” but asked if he accidentally fell asleep with the baby while he was holding her and he denied it.

The medical report on the baby’s injuries found that she was “a victim of life-threatening nonaccidental trauma.” An investigator also cited the doctor caring for the baby as saying “the injuries are not of natural causes and were consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome also known as Shaken Impact Syndrome.”

The child’s medical status is unclear.