Autistic girl died while held captive by parents, charges say

A Minnesota couple kept their autistic daughters confined in their enclosed beds designed to keep them safe for hours at a time amid squalid conditions until one of them was found fatally crushed, according to manslaughter charges filed against the parents.

Heather Lynn Cross, 49, and Darcy Ronald Cross, 57, were each charged in Crow Wing County District Court with second-degree manslaughter and a gross misdemeanor count of contributing to a child’s need for protective services in connection with the death last month of daughter Cecilia, 10, in their home.

The Crosses were arrested on Sept. 17, and each remain jailed Wednesday in lieu of $100,000 bail ahead of Oct. 1 court appearances. Court records do not list an attorney for either of them.

On the day of the arrests, “the cumulation of increasing concerning evidence” related to Cecilia’s death led to their 12-year-old daughter being placed in protective custody.

According to the criminal complaints:

Deputies were sent to the home on County Road 1 about 6 miles east of Pine River in response to a report of a child who was fatally crushed by her bed.

Police Chief Jake Maier of nearby Crosslake showed up first and saw Heather Cross trying to revive her daughter. Maier took over and applied an automated external defibrillator on Cecilia before he soon detected that rigor mortis had set in.

The bed was the only furniture in the room. Its wooden frame extended 4 to 5 feet above the mattress. Inside the frame was a metal piping that formed another frame that was surrounded and topped by mesh netting. The metal frame was askew, lifted up at one end.

Cecilia had fresh marks on her neck including one that was especially deep across her windpipe. She appeared to have been dead for at least several hours.

The Crosses told law enforcement that their daughters were autistic. The father said Cecilia is mobile but nonverbal. He said his other daughter is “an escape artist.”

They have had safety beds for the girls, manufactured for use by people with autism and other disabilities, for a number of years that are designed to keep them confined when asleep for the night. However, the parents said, the girls have a sleep disorder that often has them awake all night and sleeping during the day.

Heather Cross said that on Aug. 25, she gave Cecilia a bottle with milk and her medication between 4 and 6 a.m. before going back to bed. The parent awoke about 9:30 a.m. The mother said she spent the rest of the day packing school supplies while Darcy Cross mowed the lawn.

Even though Darcy Cross said he and his wife would typically check on the girls every couple of hours, Cecilia was “an extremely high-needs child [who] was left alone for 10 to 12 hours with no supervision,” the complaints read.

A law enforcement search of the parents’ cellphones revealed four photos sent by Heather Cross to her husband showing the metal frames’ poles were left detached, creating a gap large enough for Cecilia to get out.

The older daughter spent the entire time that day in her room. Previous visits by law enforcement and social services staff noted that she has been confined frequently in the bed with an iPad and a bed pan as a substitute for using the home’s bedrooms. She did use the bathrooms at her school.

Heather Cross said she didn’t check on the girls throughout the day until Cecilia’s body was found.

A county social worker spoke with the doctor who prescribed the safety beds for the girls. The doctor said the beds are designed for safe sleep and not for confinement during daytime, which would be a “complete misuse of the equipment.”

On Sept. 10, deputies rebuilt Cecilia’s bed and determined that the metal poles were not properly secured, essentially just sitting loose within the wooden frame and “providing no safety to [Cecilia].”