Mother Starves Daughter While Lice Eat Her Alive
The 9-year-old girl died behind the walls of this gated community. Her name has not been released. After 911 was called, first responders reported a large amount of bugs began to cover her face. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered there was an enormous amount of lice in her hair. The lice may figure into why the girl did not receive medical care in time to save her.
On Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022, firefighters responded to a call regarding an unresponsive 9-year-old girl at the Lakeside Casita’s Apartments, which is a gated community located at 8250 East Golf Links Road in Tucson, Arizona. Despite the implementation of life-saving efforts, first responders were unable to resuscitate the little girl and she was pronounced dead.
Police officers were contacted soon thereafter. According to police records, after first responders pronounced the little girl dead, a large amount of bugs began to cover her face, which turned out to be head lice. Upon closer inspection, it was noted that she had a severe infestation of head lice all throughout her hair.
It should be noted that given the little girl’s age and the recency of these events, her name has not been made public at the time of this recording. And today we’re recording on July 11th, 2022. Now, just in case anyone watching is not familiar, headlights are tiny insects that feed on blood from the human scalp.
And those most commonly affected are school-aged kids. The insects are usually spread through direct transfer from the hair of one person to the hair of another, often within a family or among kids who have close contact at school or during play. While not as common, lice can spread from one person to another through personal care items and outerwear such as hats, scarves, brushes, combs, or towels.
Headlights may also spread when items of clothing are stored together. For example, hats or scarves hung on the same hook or stored in the same school locker could serve as vehicles for spreading lice. Having head lice isn’t necessarily a sign of poor personal hygiene or an unclean living environment. And quite literally anybody can catch them.
Lice happens and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, an estimated 6 million to 12 million infestations occur each year in the United States among kids 3 to 11 years of age. However, while on the scene, officers did have some concerns about the living conditions within the home and the welfare of the other two kids, aged 11 and 13, living within the apartment, who were also suffering from severe infestations themselves.
Officers also noted that the apartment was dirty and in a general state of disarray. One of the older kids advised officers that their mother, 38-year-old Sandra Krakovich, attempted to treat the headlights with mouthwash. According to the Mayo Clinic, prescription and non-prescription medication can be helpful for treating head lice, as long as you follow the treatment instructions carefully to rid the scalp of lice in all of their eggs.
People also use a number of home or natural remedies to get rid of head lice, such as coconut or olive oil with essential oils, apple cider vinegar, enzymebased soaps, dietimmacous earth, among others. But there is little to no clinical evidence that they’re effective. In the case of Sandra Kovich, she wasn’t too far off as mouthwash can be used as a somewhat effective home remedy.
In fact, Listerine is considered the most effective home remedy for head lice because it contains 26.9% alcohol, eucalypt, thymol, menthol, and menthol salicyate, which are not only probably toxic to lice, but it probably doesn’t feel great in your eyes or on an open sore caused by the lice.
However, there’s no information available with regards to whether or not Sandra was using Listerine specifically. Additionally, due to the sheer infestation at the Krakovich household, it is very unlikely that simply using mouthwash as a home remedy would have even put a dent in the headlights problem and really just don’t do it. Sandra and her mother, 64year-old Elizabeth Krakovich, were ultimately arrested and charged with felony CA.
However, those charges were upgraded to firstdegree homicide as investigations into the death of the little girl continued. Sandra’s other two kids were placed in the custody of family members. In an interview with the police, Sandra reportedly said that her daughter suffered from anemia and had been ill since approximately March 15th with symptoms that included headache, sore throat, fever, difficulty breathing, and trouble keeping her balance.
The mother said she had considered taking her daughter to the emergency room, but decided against it when she returned home and found her sleeping. However, text messages found on both Sandra and Elizabeth’s cell phones told a very different story. According to court documents, Sandra sent messages to her boyfriend on March 14th and March 15th stating that she knew that she needed to get her daughter to a hospital.
A week later, on March 21st, she reportedly texted, and I’m going to read this to you. Quote, “Oh my god, babe, listen. I’m in my room and my mom calls me and now we have a name redacted. So, this person was asking if I could check on her to make sure she isn’t dying.” End quote. So, Sandra’s boyfriend allegedly told her to take the little girl to the hospital and she refused.
Text between Sandra and Elizabeth showed that the lice infestation ultimately played a pivotal role in refusing to seek medical treatment. And in an interview, Sandra allegedly admitted that had she sought medical treatment for her daughter, she would still be alive today. In one such message, Elizabeth, who allegedly would watch her grandkids from time to time so Sandra could go to work, threatened to call 911 to seek help for her granddaughter, but she ultimately decided against it.
And I’ll read again for you a text message she wrote to Sandra. quote, “Can’t go to the ER with her hair, but that’s left up to me because you’re not home.” Other messages indicated that the 9-year-old was sick on March 8th, 2 weeks before her death. Elizabeth allegedly texted Sandra, complaining the kids were being unhelpful, while simultaneously accusing her own daughter of being more interested of doing things with her boyfriend than taking care of her sick kid.
Elizabeth noted that the little girl was not feeling good. on March 21st, which was a Monday, the day before she was pronounced dead. Now, the grandmother stated that the little girl had a sore throat and she was having trouble breathing. So rather than bring her to the ER, she just gave her ibuprofen. The Puma County Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and determined that the little girl’s cause of death was neglect.
However, the manner of death was undetermined. According to medical examiner Dr. Gregory L. Hess. The 9-year-old died from anemia from untreated lice infestation with malnutrition as a contributing factor. Dr. Hess also noted that the little girl had fluid buildup in her lung tissue, pale skin and organs, necrosis of the liver, an iron deficiency, and cutaneous excoriations or lesions caused by skin picking.
The medical examiner also found signs of fatty liver disease as well as heart issues. Let’s be very clear here that this is a 9-year-old girl with fatty liver disease and necrosis of the liver. Something not commonly seen in young kids. Both Sandra and Elizabeth Krakovich are set to appear in court on Monday, July 11th, 2022.
So that’s today. And as of the date of this recording, Sandra Krakovich remains in the custody of the Puma County Adult Detention Center with a bond that was initially set at $55,000, but now appears to be reduced to $40,000. According to the jail’s inmate lookup, Sandra is the only Krakovich listed within their facility, which could indicate that Elizabeth must have been bonded out.
We were able to find a singular source that noted that Elizabeth was released to pre-trial services on March 25th. With all of this in mind, we have a lot of questions about how something like this could have happened. For one, what adult allows for a head lice infestation to go on for so long that it results in death? Even if you’re a terrible parent and you don’t care about your kids, you’re going to have enough self-preservation to not want to have it yourself, wouldn’t you? It is possible that mental health could have been a factor here, but this cannot
be spoken to as there are no official sources stating that neither Sandra nor Elizabeth suffer from mental health issues that would have contributed to the death of the 9-year-old girl. One could argue poverty. Maybe Sandra and Elizabeth didn’t have the funds to purchase over-the-counter treatments for the lice.
There are stories floating around from an unofficial source that the Krakovich family was facing possible eviction, but that hasn’t been substantiated within official news sources. If the Krakovich family was having trouble purchasing an over-the-counter headlight treatment at their local Walgreens for $10 to $20, a quick trip to the doctor’s office with her three kids would have solved the issue.
Additionally, all of Sandra’s kids were schoolaged. If the infestation was so severe that insects were visible throughout the 9-year-old’s hair and face, how on earth was this not noticed by the school? Were the kids even in school? Finally, how does a 9-year-old girl end up with fatty liver disease and a necrotic liver while also being malnourished? The liver can fail due to many different types of injuries or diseases, but oftent times a cause cannot be found.
Some known causes of acute liver failure included viruses such as Epstein bar, cytogallo virus or hepatitis A, B and E. Metabolic conditions such as hereditary hemocromattosis. There’s also drug toxicity such as getting too much acetaminophen or aspirin or nascin. Certain intravenous drugs can do this as well.
Exposure to direct toxins such as phosphorus or penny royal oil. This can also happen due to acute alligraph failure, which is basically failure of a skin graft, which there’s no evidence to show the little girl had. We spoke with our friend Dr. Nathan, who’s been on the show a few times. He’s a clinical pharmacist and works with patients directly in treatment, and he was kind enough to provide his curious speculation.
He writes, quote, “There are a few factors at play. The first is the severe malnutrition that can cause all the things listed there, though less likely the necrosis. I suspect the necrosis was secondary to either viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, or secondary infection. It’s also possible that the girl was being provided with or taking of her own valition acetaminophen to help with the pain of the skin lesions and other issues.
He also says he would be interested to know what her trans amaminases and acetaminophen levels were as well as white blood count and also anti-uclear antibbody and any smooth muscle antibbody. Malnutrition with secondary infection with or without toxin ingestion is more likely than an autoimmune process given the context of this case. End quote.
What I take this to mean is that while the young girl in question could have had some sort of autoimmune function that led to some of her symptoms, more than likely malnourishment with some sort of infection with possible toxicity of some form is much more likely than an autoimmune disease. Now, with any case that is still developing, we’re going to be on the lookout for updates as they come out.
And as Elizabeth and Sandra have not been convicted of any crime yet, all statements are considered alleged until proven otherwise in a court of law. And as always, if you see something, say something. It could save a life. Sandra’s boyfriend knew what was going on and could have intervened. Elizabeth, who watched the kids on a regular basis, could have made that call to save her granddaughter’s life.
She didn’t. If you appreciate this video and support what we’re doing, if you could please hit that subscribe button on YouTube, it goes a long way to helping us build our platform.
