Cop describes deprivation at child’s home

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2002 | 8:28 a.m.

Detective Todd Wellman remembers finding very little food in the Henderson home where he discovered an 18-month-old girl dead on Oct. 1.

"There was a wax apple in there that had a bite out of it," Wellman said Tuesday during his testimony at a preliminary hearing that ended with Sierra Tisdale's parents ordered to stand trial for the death of their daughter. "There was an old Hot Pocket on the floor and some old macaroni on the stove, but little else. I wouldn't have eaten it."

After hearing from Wellman and from a Clark County medical examiner, who said that dehydration and starvation may have played a part in the death of Sierra, Justice of the Peace Rodney Burr ruled that the baby's parents will go to trial to face charges of second-degree murder and child abuse.

Demone Tisdale, 21, and Sophia Mendoza, 20, are scheduled to appear before District Court Judge Donald Mosley on Nov. 19. The pair were arrested on Oct. 1 after Tisdale's mother arrived at the home and found Sierra dead and her twin brother, Jacob, covered in vomit.

The child abuse and neglect counts, four for each parent, allege that not only was Jacob neglected, but so were his siblings, Demone Jr., 3, Shawn, 2, and Laval, 6 months.

Wellman testified that in an interview, Mendoza told him that she checked on Sierra on Sept. 29, and then left her in a bedroom and did not check on her again until Oct. 1.

Dr. Rexene Worrell, a medical examiner, testified that when she examined Sierra's body she found that the baby was badly dehydrated, dirty and that she had insect bites on her abdomen consistent with cockroach bites. In addition, her fingers and toes had mummified, and Worrell said she could count the baby's ribs because they showed through her skin so clearly.

"She weighed a little over 10 pounds," Worrell said. "She was two months premature and had a small frame, but even with those factors taken into account she should have weighed double what she did."