- McKinley Hernandez is arrested for injuries to two-year-old Giovanni Reichert
- The boy fell into a coma after blunt force trauma to his head and body
- “She won’t admit anything,” said Mama Stefanie, “she said she had been drinking.”
A Colorado mother hopes to finally find out how her 2-year-old son nearly died at the hands of a drunk, unlicensed childminder who was just arrested.
Stefanie Reichert left baby Giovanni with McKinley Slone Hernandez, 25, for a sleepover at her Lakewood home on Sept. 1.
Hours later, her son was fighting for his life with blunt force injuries to his head and body, and she received a frightening instruction from her friend.
“I received a text message from the suspect telling me that I needed to rush to St. Anthony’s Hospital because my son had become lifeless after a bath,” she said.
“When I saw him and all the 50 doctors around him, I had to leave the room because it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Giovanni Reichert, 2, required emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage after an evening with unlicensed childminder McKinley Slone Hernandez, 25, in Lakewood, Colorado
Almost three months later, mother Stefanie Reichert (left) still doesn’t know what happened to her son at the hands of childminder McKinley Hernandez (right).
Baby Giovanni before the night with the childminder that almost cost him his life
The little boy had been flown to hospital and required emergency surgery for a brain bleed that required part of his skull to be removed.
He was intubated and placed in an induced coma and has since required further life-saving operations, although his ultimate prognosis remains unclear.
“We had a rough Thanksgiving this year, to say the least!” his mother wrote on the child’s Gofundme page.
He had another operation on Thursday and was still suffering from fever, pain and discomfort, she said.
“He is quite swollen and his right eye is swollen shut,” she wrote. “He slept most of the day and I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.”
But the distraught mother is still no closer to discovering how Giovanni came to be abused to the last inch of his life in the care of a woman she considered a “friend.”
“She won’t admit anything,” Reichert told kdvr.com. “All she said was that she had been drinking and he was injured in her care.”
“I keep thinking up scenarios about the injuries he suffered, so I wish I knew.”
And she fears the months in the hospital could now take their own toll on her son. “He doesn’t like strangers,” she added.
“Now he doesn’t like the nurses and doctors. He doesn’t let anyone touch him. “We have to do everything for them there.”
He was intubated and placed in an induced coma and has since required further life-saving operations, although his ultimate prognosis remains unclear
In the Gofundme started by a friend, Giovanna is a previously “happy, healthy, energetic two-year-old.”
“As you can imagine, his parents Anthony and Stefanie are completely distraught,” he adds.
“We don’t want this sweet family to have to worry about anything other than getting their little boy well again.”
“Giovanna, you are so resilient and so strong, keep fighting little boy. ‘We love you so much!’
But the family received good news over Thanksgiving when a warrant was issued for Hernendez’s arrest on child molestation charges and she turned herself in to Lakewood police Thursday evening.
“I’m so relieved, but I also feel like she should be asked to do more,” she said.
“I feel like it’s an attempted murder, she almost killed my child.”
“You never thought it would happen to you, especially with someone you considered a friend.”