She Threw her Baby off the Balcony to "Get Rid of Her Demons"?!
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What happened when a passerby found a baby on the Galveston sidewalk?
On an October morning in Galveston, Texas, a passerby made a horrifying discovery. A seventeen month old baby girl lying unresponsive on the sidewalk outside a beachfront hotel. It's hard to understand how someone could act with such cruelty towards such an innocent little girl. Today, we are going to be discussing the horrifying case of Hannah Yonko. With all of that being said, let's get into the case. The case begins at nine forty five AM on October twenty third, twenty twenty four, when the Galveston Police Department received a call from a witness who reported finding a baby lying on the sidewalk in the house. Unresponsive in front of the beachfront Palms Hotel. Officers quickly arrived to the scene where they initially saw a white blanket half on the sidewalk and halfway on the street.
Next to that blanket there was a small pool of blood and matted up hair. Wrapped within that blanket was a baby girl who was unresponsive and barely clinging to life with a gash on her forehead and bleeding wounds on her back. She was quickly loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the nearest hospital, where hospital staff tried desperately to save her life. However, it was already too late to This baby girl's injuries were too severe and by ten thirty four AM. The child who they believe to be around sixteen or seventeen months old was was pronounced dead. Immediately after finding the baby, officers appealed to the public for information hoping to identify her. Turns out the man who found the child had also seen a woman walking away from the scene shortly before he called 911.
He gave a description of that woman who officers set out to find. And that search, thankfully, didn't last long. An officer ended up spotting a woman matching the description about half a mile away from the hotel where the baby was found. She was crying, hysterical, and when she spotted the officer, she begged him for help. She said that her daughter might be sick but couldn't find her. Again, the officer felt that she matched the description, so it was possible that she was their suspect. So they took her to the station for further questioning. Officers tried asking the woman for her name, but right away she refused to speak with them and requested a lawyer. She wouldn't even identify herself. However, as soon as this woman was taken into custody, her sister showed up to the station.
She identified herself as Mercedes Yanko and her sister was thirty year old Chanel Yanko. She agreed to speak with officers to give them more insight into what was going on. Mercedes told them that Chanel and her seventeen month old daughter, Hannah Janko, had come to Galveston from Houston for several days to visit her and her fiancee. Mercedes, Chanel, and Hannah all shared a room at the Beachfront Palms Hotel before they began checking out that morning, Wednesday, October 23rd. Now, in some reports I saw that there had been some sort of argument between Mercedes and her fiance, so just before they finished checking out, Mercedes got a ride to the Victorian, a nearby condo where she believed her fiance to be.
She wanted to speak with him in private. But after a while, Chanel showed up to the Victorian. At first, Mercedes said that Chanel showed up with her daughter and was pushing her in a stroller. But after further questioning, she admitted that she didn't actually see the baby in the stroller. But at the time, she had no reason to believe she wasn't in there. At that time, Mercedes told Chanel that she couldn't find her fiance at the condo, so she was gonna go back to the beachfront Palms Hotel to finish checking out and get their luggage.
How did police identify the woman seen leaving the hotel scene?
But Chanel told her not to go back to the hotel. Mercedes found it very odd that Chanel told her that, but when she tried pressing her, Chanel just repeated, Don't go back to the hotel several times. After speaking with Mercedes and hearing this very concerning story, officers went back to the beachfront Palms Hotel to search for evidence. There, they located a trash bag within a bin in the parking garage under the hotel just west of where baby Hannah was found.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What happened when a passerby found a baby on the Galveston sidewalk?
0:00–3:49
2
How did police identify the woman seen leaving the hotel scene?
3:49–8:31
3
What evidence did investigators find in the hotel trash that linked the suspect to the crime?
8:31–13:00
4
How did surveillance video capture the baby’s fall from the balcony?
13:00–14:30
5
What did the medical examiner determine was the cause of Hannah’s death?
14:30–16:29
6
What was the insanity defense’s argument about demonic possession?
16:29–16:36