Colorado Springs man guilty of neglecting child to death

A man from Colorado Springs is facing years in prison after neglecting his six-week-old boy to the point of death last February.

John Ostrander pleaded guilty Wednesday to third-degree felony child abuse resulting in death after his son, Zayden, was found dead on an apartment floor. The boy was severely underweight and according to one Colorado Springs Fire Department paramedic, looked like “something out of an Auschwitz movie” and that he was basically “skin and bones.”

Ostrander originally faced a first-degree murder charge for the death. The boy’s mother, Donica Mirabal, was also charged with murder.

Mirabal told investigators that the day Zayden died, he would go limp and pale when being held.

Investigators found that in the days leading up to Zayden’s death, he didn’t get any hospital treatment because Mirabal didn’t have a vehicle.

Investigators asked if Ostrander fed the child, and he said he was the “breadwinner” and that Mirabal’s job was to raise the children.

On Feb. 26, Zayden began feeling clammy and cold. Zayden also only ate about five times that day and did not have any bowel movements. On Feb. 27, Zayden had stopped eating and was having a hard time staying awake. Mirabal said he would open his mouth as if to cry but no sound would come out. Zayden died Feb. 28.

Ostrander told a judge Wednesday that he acknowledged his responsibility in the child’s death.

“I failed to get my son medical care and he needed it, and I knew he was underweight and I should have been paying better attention,” Ostrander said in court Wednesday.

He faces four to 32 years in prison. He’ll be sentenced on July 26.