Colorado Springs woman gets no prison time after child’s drowning

A Colorado Springs woman won’t be sent to prison after her granddaughter’s friend drowned in a hotel pool last year.

Lynthia Washington was sentenced Tuesday to two years of community corrections — that’s essentially a supervised probation in lieu of a prison sentence, but it’s not the same as probation.

That news angered the victim’s family, who stormed out of the courtroom, with one yelling, “You let her die!”

In the courtroom, the victim’s mother told the judge she constantly has dreams of her daughter, the most recent where she “finally found her after searching for so long, only to be woken up and have my heart sink again”.

On Dec. 16, Washington took her granddaughter and two of her friends to the Hotel Elegante on S. Circle Drive. While her granddaughter was asleep in a room, the other girls asked if they could go to the swimming pool, and Washington gave them permission.

Minutes after the girls arrived at the pool, one of them, 9-year-old Yevaeh Patrick-Moon, jumped in near a deep end and kept bobbing back and forth between the surface and the bottom of the pool. A man noticed her at the bottom of the pool and he jumped in to recover her body, but she died.

Washington told investigators she planned on checking in with the children after a few minutes, but about 10 minutes later, she found out about the drowning.

Yaveah’s father also went before the judge and told the court he, “thinks about Yaveah every day and night.”

Washington was arrested for child abuse resulting in death. She faced prison time, but received her sentence after an emotional testimony Tuesday.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.