CAMDEN — A 20-year-old city woman has been charged after her 4-year-old daughter died at home.

Prosecutors say Lucy Gunter failed to seek medical help for her injured child, who authorities found unresponsive Tuesday morning after her mother called 911 to report the child was not breathing and did not have a pulse.

Natalise was pronounced dead that morning at a hospital.

Court records obtained by the Courier-Post say that Gunter told police that her boyfriend beat the child four days earlier because the girl had not eaten. After the beating, the girl spent days not eating and constantly sleeping, investigators say the mother said.

Prosecutors have not said whether Gunter's boyfriend has been arrested or will be charged.

Gunter was charged with second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, officials said Wednesday.

This is the latest case in New Jersey involving a mother accused of failing to protect a child from abuse at the hands of someone else.

In this same county, 27-year-old Amber Bobo pleaded guilty earlier this year  to child endangerment after her boyfriend, Michael Disporto, was charged last year with raping and killing her 2-year-old daughter.

Authorities said Bobo waited a whole day to take her daughter to the hospital after seeing injuries and watching her vomit several times.

In an unrelated case, a state appellate panel last year ruled that a mother could be considered abusive because she kept returning with her child to her dangerous boyfriend, who in one case swung her baby around by the ankles and tried to rape the child.

“To place (the baby) in an environment with such a volatile and dangerous individual clearly placed her in imminent danger and (at) substantial risk of physical harm,” the court said in its July 2016 decision.

Sergio Bichao is deputy digital editor at New Jersey 101.5. Send him news tips: Call 609-359-5348 or email sergio.bichao@townsquaremedia.com.

 

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