Northampton County’s investigating grand jury has recommended criminal charges in the daycare death of McKenna Rose Felmly, a three-month old infant who died at a Lehigh Township Day Care April 1, 2016.

Sharon Ballek, owner and operator of Sharon’s Day Care at 4538 Third St., will be charged with recklessly endangering another person and endangering the welfare of children. She will be spared prosecution for involuntary manslaughter. The daycare was closed by the state Department of Human Services April 14, 2016, in an order finding that there was “gross incompetence, negligence and misconduct” presenting an “immediate and serious danger to the life or health of children in care.” But the grand jury decided, in a 19-1 vote, that there was insufficient evidence that this negligence was a direct cause of McKenna Rose Felmly’s death.

In announcing the grand jury’s recommendations, District Attorney John Morganelli called the death a tragedy that should serve as a warning to all daycare providers. He said the message is simple: “When people bring their children to a daycare, they place these children in your care. When you agree to accept these children and charge a fee for your services, you are impliedly assuring that your environment will be a safe one for the children and that you will adhere to and follow all regulations promulgated by the state to insure safety.”

Fourteen witnesses testified before the grand jury, including two medical experts and Ballek herself. That testimony established that on at least three occasions the day of the death, the infant was left alone and unsupervised for periods of between 25 and 30 minutes in the “back room,” a walk-in closet or nursery at an unlicensed portion of the daycare.

Ballek, who cooperated with authorities, acknowledged that she did place the baby in the crib on her back, but turned her over to her stomach because the baby screamed on her back. She admitted that this sleep position was incorrect, and that there was no monitor in the back room.

Grand jurors also heard from Jean Kroboth, who worked with Ballek since 1991. On the day in question, she said that Ballek came out from the backroom and handed her the baby, whose body was cold and lips were blue.

“She handed me a dead baby. The baby was dead.”

She said that Ballek was aware that state regulations require that an infant be placed on her back, but she admitted to Kroboth that she had paced the baby on her stomach.

Ballek herself was very distraught after the incident, and suffered a heart attack either that day or the next.

Lehigh Township Volunteer Fire Chief Richard Hildebrand Jr., arrived within three minutes of the dispatch, but the baby’s body was already cold to the touch. There was no pulse and she was not breathing. Other first responders tried CPR, as had Ballek, but it failed.

State health officials who investigated the daycare and shut it down noted 10 violations, and had a number of violations nearly every year that she was inspected. Most were technical in nature. “I wouldn’t characterize it as a dangerous environment overall,” said DA Morganelli.

Two medical experts gave conflicting accounts. Dr. Rameen Starling-Roney performed an autopsy. “I don’t have any anatomic cause of death, any natural disease, any trauma or anything like that, no toxicological cause of death, no drugs or anything like that, nothing that I could say that particularly caused the death of this child.” He called it sudden, unexplained death in infancy.

Dr. Mark X. Cicero from Yale University, however, said that the baby should have been monitored. “[I]f a daycare provider had been watching McKenna, that provider would have noted any respiratory distress or apnea that occurred prior to McKenna’d death. This would have prevented McKenna’s death ... .”

The charge of endangering a child is a first degree misdemeanor, with a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The reckless endangerment charge is a second degree misdemeanor, with a maximum punishment of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Ballek is represented by Allentown criminal defense attorney Gavin Hollihan. Morganelli presented this matter to the grand jury himself, and credited them for sifting through the evidence.