SOUTH BEND, Ind. (TCN) — A 27-year-old mother will spend the next several years behind bars for running over her 8-year-old daughter in an apartment parking lot while she claimed they were playing a “game.”
WNDU-TV reports Jasmine White was sentenced to four years in the St. Joseph County Jail and will have two years of probation following her release. Court records show she entered into a plea agreement in January for charges relating to child neglect.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on Aug. 29, 2024, at 5:48 p.m., South Bend Police Department officers responded to a crash at the Cedar Glen Apartments and found an 8-year-old girl “bleeding severely” in the parking lot. Paramedics transported her to a hospital in critical condition, where she received treatment for skull fractures, the loss of five teeth, and other abrasions. The affidavit says the girl sustained a “large facial laceration that had exposed a portion of the front of her skull.”
Witnesses told police they saw the victim, identified as N.T. in the affidavit, and her siblings running alongside White’s Chevy Equinox when N.T.’s foot became caught under a tire, and she “was dragged down, with her face hitting the pavement, causing the most severe injuries.”
N.T.’s 4-year-old sibling told interviewers that their sister was holding onto the window when she fell, though others said the door handle. A 5-year-old claimed White “had locked the car and everyone was trying to get in, then drove away fast.” White’s 6-year-old child said White “routinely plays this ‘game’ where she races the kids to the car, locks the doors, and acts as though she is going to leave them behind.”
The kids, however, “don’t like the game, and are afraid they will get stranded.”
The apartment manager shared video footage from the parking lot that showed the children approaching White’s vehicle as she backs out of a parking space. N.T. reportedly held onto the door while White continued driving away.
N.T. remained in the hospital for several days following the incident, but was stabilized and eventually released.