A six-month-old baby was found deceased in a Big Lake home on Friday, prompting a large response from emergency services and child protection authorities.
The Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office identified the infant as Gideon Peter Mwangi in a press release following the incident. According to the press release, the preliminary autopsy results revealed the cause of death as bacterial meningitis.
The home where the baby was found was later declared unlivable due to filth and the presence of black mold in several areas. Police described the house as “extremely dirty and cluttered.”
The incident occurred at a residence that some say was already familiar to authorities. According to a Facebook post in a local crime group from someone claiming to be a neighbor, residents had been calling child protective services and requesting welfare checks at the home for the past six years. The household reportedly included two adults and nine children. The person alleged in the Facebook post that the children rarely, if ever, left the home.
One neighbor reported to KSTP that she called local authorities more than a dozen times for various concerns over the children. A second neighbor said she called twice, after seeing the toddlers running in the street in front of vehicles unsupervised.
According to Fox 9, the children are now staying with relatives and the county has filed a petition for an emergency protective order. The petition reportedly says the father “initially refused to allow necessary treatment to mitigate the potential of meningitis for all the children” and describes the uninhabitable state of the home. The children, all under the age of 13, received medical care and were “highly dysregulated,” Fox 9 reported.
The investigation into Mwangi’s death is ongoing. No arrests have been made at this time.
Hayley Feland
Hayley Feland previously worked as a journalist with The Minnesota Sun, The Wisconsin Daily Star, and The College Fix. She is a Minnesota native with a passion for politics and journalism.
