WAYNE, Mich. (WXYZ) — A woman from Wayne is being held without bond after being charged with felony murder and first-degree child abuse in the death of her 8-year-old daughter.
Early Saturday morning, Chelsea Renee Duperon, 30, called 911 to report her daughter, Lyla Cassel, had stopped breathing.
When Wayne police arrived, it was clear the child had been assaulted. Police noted severe swelling and bruising to Lyla's head, face and neck.
Police said Duperon first claimed her daughter fell down the stairs but then her stories began to change.
Duperon reportedly told her live-in boyfriend two days earlier that a ghost or spirit assaulted her daughter. The boyfriend is not Lyla's father.
The boyfriend said Lyla appeared to be in distress but that he figured it was her mother's responsibility to get medical attention for her.
When talking to police further, Duperon talked about "bad spirits" and a mystery woman who appeared in their basement and assaulted Lyla days earlier.
Police said Lyla was wearing a diaper and that Duperon said it was because it was difficult for her daughter to get to the bathroom after she was injured, so she thought wearing a diaper would be easier.
It's been alleged that Duperon has problems with alcohol and relatives said she would drink and drive with her daughter in the car, according to police.
As detectives continued to talk with Duperon Saturday, they said she eventually admitted to hitting her daughter and not getting her any medical attention because she thought her condition was improving.
At one point, Michigan State Police obtained evidence showing Duperon going to a store where she purchased the diapers, Vaseline and liquor.
The medical examiner has indicated that Lyla died from blunt force trauma to the head.
A defense attorney, appointed to Duperon for her arraignment, said she was not the only person in the home and asked that she undergo a psychological examination while in jail.
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Erin Wilmoth said the sheer brutality of what happened to Lyla was unlike anything she's ever seen in her years of handling child abuse cases and based on conversations with the medical examiner, Wilmoth said if Duperon had gotten her daughter medical attention the day of the assault, she could have been saved.
District court Judge Breeda O'Leary ordered Duperon held without bond.
