Police say the 3-year-old girl who died in Monroe County on Aug. 13 lived in “deplorable conditions” that exposed her to animal feces, spoiled food, trash, an insect infestation and a stench noticeable several feet from the front door.
“The house was in such a deteriorated state that no one should have to reside in such conditions,” Detective Jeffrey Ripley, with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, wrote in court documents filed Monday.
The detective wrote the conditions were so horrible that authorities even removed the animals from the home.
The girl died Aug. 13, and her mother, Keera L. Braun, 27, and grandmother, Millissa D. Hicks, have been arrested and charged with neglect resulting in the child’s death.
A doctor at Riley Hospital told Ripley the girl died from a brain injury that was the result of prolonged lack of oxygen, court documents show. An autopsy is pending, and while some of the circumstances around the girl’s death remain unclear, the detective wrote that the doctor told him “lack of action” on the part of Braun and Hicks, as well as their delaying reporting the child’s medical emergency “contributed to the severity of her condition.”
Authorities were dispatched to the home, in the 4000 block of North Thomas Road, about 2 miles south of the library in Ellettsville, on Aug. 8.
Ripley's report indicates Braun told him that she had been up all night because her daughter’s breathing “was off.” She said she had given the girl melatonin, a hormone supplement to aid sleeping, between midnight and 1 a.m., and that the girl around 1:30 a.m. “started acting ‘weird’ and her eyes were ‘droopy.’”
Braun also told the detective that she lay next to the girl all night because she was “worried sick about her,” but that the girl was unresponsive when she tried to wake her at about 8:15 a.m. the girl’s lips were blue, causing the mother to call 911, the probable cause affidavit reads.
Ripley wrote the mother and grandmother admitted to using marijuana the day before, and that police throughout the home found loose and packaged tablets “of varying medications … readily accessible to children.”
A 10-year-old child who also was present that day told police he found the girl unresponsive on the floor around midnight, and the girl’s mother and grandmother took the girl to the bathroom, put water on her and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions, the affidavit reads. The 10-year-old also told police that he heard the girl gasping and struggling to breath and urged the adults to call emergency services.
When the girl started breathing again, Braun took her daughter to bed, the 10-year-old told police, the affidavit reads, and he said the mother “told him to check (the girl’s) breathing every ten minutes, and she and the other adults went to sleep.”
Ripley wrote that subsequent interviews with the mother and grandmother corroborated the 10-year-old’s account of the girl’s medical emergency around midnight, including that they performed CPR on her.
The girl was pronounced dead at 2:51 p.m. Aug. 13, 2025.
Braun was booked into Monroe County Jail on a Level 1 felony charge of neglect of a dependent and two Level 6 felony charges of neglect of a dependent. Hicks was booked into the jail on a Level 1 felony charge of neglect of a dependent and a Level 6 felony charge of neglect of a dependent.
Monroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kehr said the investigation is ongoing.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Police: 3-year-old Monroe County girl died in 'deplorable' conditions
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