Carpentersville baby sitter questioned in infant's death

Carpentersville police are investigating the death of an 8-month-old boy who was left under a blanket and unattended for five hours by an unlicensed baby sitter in Carpentersville, a detective testified at a coroner's inquest Wednesday.

The infant, Sparsh Dhar of Carpentersville, died April 22 after he was rushed to Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin with a temperature of 106 degrees, according to the Kane County Coroner's office.

Detective Paul Brandt testified that the sitter told him she left the boy alone in a car seat with a blanket draped over it for at least five hours, during which time Sparsh and other children were twice left unsupervised as she drove her teenage daughter to and from track practice.

Brandt said the oldest person at the baby sitter's home when she left was her 8-year-old son, who has special needs and is possibly autistic, according to the Department of Child and Family Services.

"He advised he was not paying attention," Brandt testified. "He was playing video games and didn't know what was going on pretty much. He stated he never went into the room."

The baby sitter because she has not been charged. A coroner's jury Wednesday ruled the boy's death a homicide; Brandt said the case is "still an open investigation."

Sanjay Dhar, the child's father, said the sitter identified herself as a licensed day care provider. The family chose her, he said, because she "put us at comfort" and seemed to be running a reputable operation.

On the day of Sparsh's death, he was left at the woman's home at about 8:30 a.m. The father testified that the sitter had been instructed to keep the child sitting upright, possibly in his car seat, should he ever develop a severe cold or congestion.

"When we dropped him in the morning that day, he was perfectly healthy," Dhar said.

The baby sitter told police she was with the infant until 11 or 11:30 a.m., when he became congested, according to Brandt. She then placed him in a car seat near a window and draped a blanket over the opening in the seat, the detective said.

The sitter reported leaving Sparsh and other children alone for "10 minutes, tops" about 1:45 p.m. to take her 14-year-old daughter to track practice. Her son returned from school later in the afternoon, and she ventured out again to pick up the daughter about 3:55 p.m.

It wasn't until about 4:30 p.m. that the baby sitter returned to the room where she left Sparsh, Brandt said. After placing a 911 call, she then administered CPR to the child, who was blue in color and unresponsive when paramedics arrived. The child's preliminary cause of death is listed as hyperthermia, an advanced form of heat stroke.

Sparsh's parents sobbed quietly as the details of his death were recounted.

"Five hours, and nobody cared to look how he was," Dhar said, holding up a photo of the boy to the jury. "We don't understand what might have happened in that room."

A DCFS investigator said the baby sitter was denied licensing for in-home child care in 1996. Later that year, the agency found she provided "inadequate supervision" for three children who were left alone in the home for two hours, the investigator said.

Dhar said "not a single day goes by" when the parents don't wonder if they could have done something differently to protect their son, who he described as "always smiling."

"We hope justice will be served," Dhar said.