A Sevier County man was sentenced to prison Tuesday for causing the dehydration-related death of his baby daughter last year.
David Lewis Anderson, 38, of Monroe, had pleaded guilty in June to second-degree felony child-abuse homicide in connection with the June 7, 2016, death of his 11-month-old daughter, Siri.
On Tuesday, 6th District Judge Marvin Bagley sentenced Anderson to one to 15 years at the Utah State Prison.
Sentencing was initially scheduled for Sept. 5, but absconded to North Carolina, where he was arrested about a week later.
According to charging documents, Anderson — the sole caretaker of the child in the weeks before her death — called 911 at about noon on June 7, 2016, to report she was not breathing.
The girl, who would have turned 1 year old the next day, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The state medical examiner later found the child died from dehydration due to neglect, according to court documents.
Sevier County sheriff’s officers reported the child was “very dirty, and smelled of urine and feces,” court documents state.
She was wearing a soiled paper, had severe diaper rash and dry, cracked lips “and her eyes appeared to be sunken in her skull,” court documents state.
Anderson’s home had no air conditioning and the temperature was in the low 90s, according to a sheriff’s deputy, who reported that flies were buzzing about unwashed dishes in the kitchen.
Flies also buzzed over urine-soaked bedding in the child’s bedroom, which smelled “as pungent as the odor of vinegar,” according to court documents.
Anderson told investigators he had taken Siri off baby formula and was giving her more solid foods, court documents state.
The child’s mother had been removed from the home twice in the months prior to the child’s death — in February 2016 for allegedly threatening Anderson with a knife, and on May 25, 2016, for violating a protective order issued after her February arrest.