A Baton Rouge woman whose 3-year-old daughter was beaten to death after she left the girl at home unsupervised with other children was sent to prison for 18 months after pleading guilty to manslaughter.Â
Dineshia Denise Yates, 27, accepted the best-interest guilty pleas during an April 10 hearing inside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse. She confessed to manslaughter and cruelty to juveniles in the February 2024 death of her daughter, Blessing Buckles.Â
District Judge Collette Greggs handed down a 15-year sentence for the manslaughter conviction but suspended all but 18 months of it, 19th JDC court records show. The judge also sentenced Yates to 18 months on the juvenile cruelty charge as part of the plea deal and ran the two sentences together.
Yates was one of four people charged in Buckles’ death. Terica Denise Scott, the 28-year-old guardian of two boys — ages 10 and 12 — was also indicted on charges of manslaughter and cruelty to juveniles. Scott, who pleaded not guilty and is still fighting her case, is expected to appear in court before Judge Greggs on May 5.
The two boys, Scott’s son and nephew, were arrested as juveniles and booked on counts of second-degree murder and battery after the girl died.
Investigators said Yates and her children had been living in Scott’s house in the 3300 block of O’Neal Lane for about two weeks before East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputies responded to a medical call there early in the morning of Feb. 12, 2024. A bruised and beaten Buckles was unresponsive and not breathing. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital in critical condition with brain bleeding, according to an arrest report.
No adults were present when officers arrived. Eight children ranging in ages from 11 months to 12 years were left at the house unsupervised for several hours, according to investigators. Yates and Scott pulled up to the residence as deputies canvassed the area. They told officers they had just left a nearby casino boat.
At the hospital, medical staff reported Buckles’ bruises and abrasions to officers, telling deputies the injuries were consistent with blunt force trauma wounds. Investigators also noticed bruises on a 4-year-old girl at the house. Buckles died from her injuries Feb. 17.
Detectives identified the two boys, ages 10 and 12, as the culprits responsible for the girls’ bruises, according to arrest reports.Â
Scott was present when detectives questioned her son as one of the suspects in the fatal beating. She interjected several times and told investigators she and Yates had previously noticed bruises on the other children when they were left alone with Scott’s nephew — the other suspect.
Scott told officers Yates ignored her children’s pleas for help and continued to leave them at the house unsupervised for hours, despite the boys’ violent behavior toward them.
It was not immediately clear if the two boys have been tried or sentenced in juvenile court.
During last week’s hearing, Yates also pleaded guilty to theft charges in two unrelated incidents. One of them involved her robbing a man she met at the blackjack tables at The Queen Baton Rouge casino in October 2023, court records show. Judge Greggs sentenced Yates to five years on those charges, but suspended the prison stint and ordered the woman to serve two years probation after she is released from incarceration.Â
Arrest reports and court records show Scott has been arrested more than 30 times since 2014 on counts of theft, criminal trespass and drug possession.
In July 2021, a grand jury in East Baton Rouge Parish indicted her on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of a woman named Dakayla Bailey. The victim was fatally shot in a home in the 6000 block of Plank Road.
Scott was never tried or convicted in that case.