Former daycare owner escapes with only probation after she hangs baby from noose

A Minnesota woman who hanged a toddler from a noose at her in-home daycare in Minneapolis in 2016 will walk away with probation after a judge handed down sentencing on Monday in a Minneapolis courtroom.

StarTribune reports that Hennepin County District Judge Jay Quam sentenced Nataliia Karia, 43, to 10 years of probation with at least two months on electronic home monitoring. She’s also required to undergo court-ordered mental health services. Twenty months spent in behind bars while count toward time served and taken off of the probation sentence.

The sentencing stems from a November 18, 2016, incident in which Karia brought a 16-month-old toddler boy to the basement of her in-home Minneapolis day care, where she put a noose around his neck and attempted to hang him. When another parent dropped off his child at the daycare, Karia told him that she had “done something bad.”

The parent heard crying coming from the basement area, then walked downstairs and noticed the little boy. The parent rescued the little boy before fleeing with him and calling 911. By that time, Karia had already fled the scene in her vehicle, hitting a bicyclist, a pedestrian, and another driver along the way.

Authorities caught up to Karia at a Park Avenue overpass in Minneapolis, where she was ready to jump until police grabbed her and arrested her.

In court on Monday, Quam indicated that the  “the perfect storm of factors unlikely to ever be repeated” and that Karia was “a low risk” to reoffend, based off of psychological assessments by doctors. Karia, clearly emotional, read a statement in Russian about the abuse her husband doled out on her and her children since 2006, when they moved to the U.S. from the Ukraine.

According to Karia, her husband physically and mentally abused her regularly, then denied her access to healthcare, although she was struggling with mental and emotional issues. She also stated her husband forced her to work as he drove the family into “financial ruin.”

“I don’t want to push this terrible crime onto my husband. I just want to explain what happened. Your Honor, my children need me … Give me a chance to resume a normal life.”

Karia has three children, ages 2, 7 and 10, who she no longer has physical custody of. Child social workers will continue to monitor her and her competency as a parent.

[Feature Photo: Nataliia Karia/Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office]