FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas woman is accused of slitting her 4-year-old daughter’s throat and stuffing her body into a trash can before reporting her missing Monday morning.
Krystal Judy Lewandowski, 34, ultimately told police she was “advised to slit her daughter’s throat” or “something worse would happen to her daughter,” according to an arrest affidavit obtained by multiple Fort Worth-area news agencies. She told investigators she “saved” her daughter.
Lewandowski is charged with first-degree murder of a person under the age of 10, according to Tarrant County Jail records. She is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that officers were called to the family’s duplex shortly after 11:30 a.m. Monday after Lewandowski called 911 to report her daughter, Czara, missing.
Firefighters were dispatched to a stabbing call at the same home shortly after the call to police.
The affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram said Lewandowski was giving a 911 dispatcher details about her daughter’s physical description when she admitted her daughter was not missing.
“OK, maybe I should just tell you now. OK, so last night I was advised to slit her throat,” Lewandowski said, according to court records.
When the dispatcher asked where Czara was, Lewandowski admitted she’d wrapped the girl up and placed her in a trash can in the back yard, the newspaper reported. An officer went to the home and found the girl’s body.
CBS Dallas-Fort Worth reported that the girl was found inside a trash bag. Lewandowski later told detectives she cut Czara’s throat Sunday night.
A fire lieutenant pronounced the girl dead at 11:51 a.m. Monday, the affidavit said. The police department’s Crimes Against Children Unit took the helm of the investigation.
“We do believe, and we want to stress, that this is an isolated incident,” Officer Buddy Calzada, a Fort Worth police spokesman, told reporters at the scene Monday afternoon.
Watch Fort Worth police Officer Buddy Calzada speak about the killing at the scene Monday, courtesy of the Star-Telegram.
WFAA in Dallas reported that the document alleged Lewandowski told police she was told “something worse would happen to her daughter if Lewandowski didn’t slit her daughter’s throat.”
It was not immediately clear of Lewandowski had mental health issues, but a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman told the news station and the Star-Telegram that the agency has had contact with the family in the past.
Czara’s 18-month-old brother was in the house when the girl was killed, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital for an evaluation but was found to be uninjured.
Authorities said DFPS does not have custody of the boy but caseworkers are ensuring that he is safe with family.
“The reality of it is that this is a very sad case,” Calzada told reporters. “We have a child that has been murdered.”
Part of the family’s neighborhood was closed off for most of the day, WFAA reported.
“The whole street was blocked off,” neighbor Hope Stephens told the station. “There had to have been at least 10 cop cars, crime scene tape. That’s what threw us off, was the crime scene tape, so we knew something bad happened.”
Cox Media Group
