St. Robert foster mom charged after child died in her care

PULASKI COUNTY, Mo. — A St. Robert woman has been charged after one of the two children she fostered died while in her care.

According to online court documents, 26-year-old Alyssa Sierra Jackson is charged with:

• first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, death of a child
• abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death
• abuse or neglect of a child, serious emotional or physical injury
• first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, serious physical injury

A probable cause statement from the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) says deputies were called to Jackson’s residence in St. Robert on Aug. 13 for a two-year-old girl who was unresponsive. The child ended up in the pediatric intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, and succumbed to her injuries at around 11 p.m. the next day.

Documents say when deputies interviewed Jackson on Aug. 14, she told them the children “never left her sight” and that she was the only person who was ever around them. She also illustrated to deputies where she found the girl, who was lying next to a bed.

Deputies executed a search warrant on Jackson’s home later that same day, and documents say they found the house in “disarray with human feces on the floor, walls, stained on mattresses, dishes piled up in every sink to include the bathroom sinks, flies throughout the house with molded food on the floors and in the children’s bed, clothes piled on Jackson’s bed to the ceiling, with a smell of mildew and mold.”

Additionally, in the place where Jackson said she found the girl, the probable cause statement says deputies found a freshly cleaned and shampooed floor that was still damp.

A second foster child was removed from Jackson’s care and taken by another foster family who took the boy to a St. Louis hospital for treatment of injuries believed to be sustained while in Jackson’s custody.

The probable cause statement says doctors told PCSO the boy was malnourished and dehydrated, had bruising near his left eye and on his forehead, and what appeared to be a hand print on the right side of his face. Documents say testing had found a subdural hematoma and compression fractures in the child’s spine, and doctors told deputies that the injuries were consistent with child abuse.

Jackson is currently being held in the Pulaski County Jail.

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