Mom of two babies found mysteriously dead outside of their home explains what happened: Report

A Missouri mom who found her two young daughters mysteriously unconscious last Wednesday has reportedly explained her version what happened the day they died.

Kansas City Star reports that Jenna Boedecker allegedly told authorities that she fell asleep in her car on July 4 after she lost her house key. She said her daughters, 2-year-old Ireland Autumn Jane Ribando and 7-week-old Goodknight Berretta June Ribando, slept in the car with her after they couldn’t get into the home. When Boedecker woke up the following morning, her children were unconscious. Emergency personnel pronounced the girls dead a short time later.

Three hours before the children were found unresponsive, a social worker had visited the home, off of the 15600 block of Cameron Road in Clay County. According to a search warrant, social worker JaQuan Humphrey, with the Missouri Children’s Division in Clay County, arrived at the home to perform a welfare check after receiving a call to the hotline the night prior, at close to 11 p.m.

At around  9:30 a.m. and 9:40 a.m., Humphrey knocked on the front door of the home several times but no one answered.

Humphrey told authorities that an SUV in front of the home was running, but he didn’t didn’t see anyone inside. Humphrey admitted to not paying attention to the vehicle and only walking up to two to three feet beside it.

“Humphrey said he did not want someone thinking he could have been prowling around cars out in a rural area,” police stated, according to Kansas City Star.

Jenna Boedecker [Police Handout]
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Boedecker’s husband, Joseph, told police that the night before his children died, his wife apparently became upset when she thought he cheated on her, and subsequently threw a brick at him as he tried to drive away from their rural home. She then allegedly smashed into his F-150 truck with her Jeep Patriot, causing damage to both vehicles. Authorities indicated that the damage on the vehicles was consistent with Joseph’s story.

Joseph said he drove to his mother’s house after the fight and didn’t hear anything about his children until authorities contacted him and told him his two babies had died.

“My husband left between 3 and 4 a.m. to get cigarettes and gas,” Boedecker told authorities. “He was in the field with some girl and never came back. I had the babies in the car because I didn’t want them to hear us argue. I dozed off for just a second. When I woke up I saw them and ran them to the neighbors’.”

Boedecker also reportedly told police she later located the key to her home but never went in. Yet, court documents state that a responding officer noticed the front door was open.

Authorities arrested Boedecker and charged her with property damage, armed criminal action, and domestic assault, stemming from the incident with her husband. On Monday, Boedecker pleaded “not guilty” and asked a Clay County judge to lower her bond so that she could attend her daughters’ funerals, but the request was ultimately denied.

Boedecker remains behind bars on a $75,000 bond. The children’s causes of death are still pending. More charges may follow, depending on the autopsy results.

Check back with CrimeOnline as additional details become available.

[Feature Photo: Ireland and Goodknight/GoFundMe]