Kristina Huemann Siedlecki has been convicted of murder in the death of her eight-month-old daughter.
Siedlecki, a Sacramento mother, now faces a maximum sentence of 15 years to life behind bars after jurors found her responsible for failing to obtain medical care for Jannah Abughazaleh, who suffered devastating burns across nearly a third of her tiny body. The infant died on Aug. 25, 2024, from second- and third-degree wounds that prosecutors said were left to fester without treatment.
The burns occurred when Jannah’s father, Hussein Abughazaleh, placed her in a bath with dangerously hot water, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. By the time Siedlecki returned home, the baby’s skin had already turned red. The injuries worsened dramatically over the following hours—her skin began to peel and blister—yet neither parent took her to a hospital.
Investigators discovered that Siedlecki had used her phone to search for information about her daughter’s condition, demonstrating she understood the severity of what was happening. She later told authorities that Jannah’s breathing changed, her body went limp, and finally she became completely unresponsive.
“Instead of calling 911, Siedlecki went on social media while her husband contacted a friend for help nearly 45 minutes later,” the DA’s Office said Monday. “Siedlecki’s failure to obtain medical care resulted in the death of her child.”
The couple’s reluctance to seek help stemmed from fear of arrest, investigators found. That decision cost the infant her life.
The child’s paternal grandmother, Naomi Magness, had raised alarms long before the tragedy. Magness told KCRA 3 in December 2024 that she had contacted Child Protective Services prior to Jannah’s birth, worried that Siedlecki and Abughazaleh would be unable to keep the baby safe.
“She lost her life. She didn’t even have a chance to live a life and you [CPS] screwed up not taking the baby out,” Magness said.
Abughazaleh was also arrested on murder charges in 2024 and held without bail at the Sacramento County Main Jail. On Jan. 26, he suffered a severe medical emergency while in custody. Doctors gave him a grave prognosis, and a judge granted compassionate release. He died out of custody just hours later, never facing trial for his daughter’s death.
The case has left Magness grieving both her granddaughter and her son while questioning the system she had tried to activate on Jannah’s behalf. Her warnings to CPS, she maintains, were ignored until it was too late.
Siedlecki’s conviction closes one chapter of a case that spanned from a scalding bath in a Sacramento home to a jailhouse death and a grandmother’s public anguish. The mother now awaits punishment for choices prosecutors framed as deliberate neglect—social media scrolling and panic over law enforcement contact prioritized over an ambulance call that might have saved her daughter.
The burns that killed Jannah Abughazaleh were inflicted by her father in a bathtub with water hot enough to blister and peel the skin across 30 percent of her body. What followed was not a rush to emergency care but hours of deterioration, phone searches about the injuries, and finally a social media session by the mother while the father reached out to a friend rather than paramedics. By the time help arrived, the baby was unresponsive.
Siedlecki’s sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 23.