Charges of felony neglect have been filed against a St. Paul mother whose 17-month-old son was beaten to death April 12.
Kalani Forss, 33, wasn't at her East Side apartment that day. Her live-in boyfriend, Joseph R. Bell, was sentenced in July to 38 years in prison for killing Dakota Ryan Forss. Bell admitted pulling the boy's hair out of his scalp, bruising his lung with a blow to the back and kicking him 5 feet across a room.
Kalani Forss was not there when paramedics responded, but she told police she had observed Bell abusing Dakota many times between January and his death in April.
Forss made her first court appearance Monday in Ramsey County District Court, authorities say.