COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – A man who didn’t report his toddler daughter’s death for about a month before a cable company worker found her decomposed body in a crib at their apartment was sentenced Friday to three years in prison after being convicted on charges including corpse abuse.
Eric Warfel also had an infant daughter die in 2013 in what was ruled a “sudden unexplained infant death,” and prosecutors argued that he didn’t report the death of his 21-month-old daughter, Ember, in Medina last summer because he didn’t want an autopsy to be performed.
But in letters asking the judge for leniency, his relatives and friends described Warfel as a gentle, protective father who was devastated after losing one daughter and made poor choices because he just couldn’t cope when it happened again.
Warfel had moved to a motel with his surviving daughter, now 8, and investigators found cocaine in their room after arresting him at a mall near Cleveland once Ember’s body was found.
Medical examiners couldn’t determine a cause of death because of decomposition but did find traces of cocaine in her hair samples. Warfel’s attorney has said the girl was born with severe medical problems.