An East Canton, Ohio, home daycare operator was sentenced on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, to five years in prison for the death of a seven-month-old boy who suffocated during a nap at her unlicensed daycare earlier this year. Melanie DiMarzio, 46, had pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering children. In line with Awaaz Punjab's minor-safety rule, this report does not name the baby; he is identified here only by his age and his home county, Stark County.
Source: The Canton Repository
Assistant Stark County Prosecutor Daniel Petricini told the court that the baby suffocated after he was put down to nap on a bed instead of in a crib, according to the Canton Repository, whose reporter covered the sentencing hearing. DiMarzio ran the daycare with her husband from her East Canton home, east of Canton in northeastern Ohio, and the Repository reported it operated as a cash-only, unlicensed business.
What happened on March 10
On March 10, police responded to a 911 call from the East Canton home reporting that the baby had been found blue and was not breathing after he went down for a nap. He was taken to hospital, where he died. The case then moved slowly through the Stark County system: DiMarzio was not arrested until July 21, more than four months later, when East Canton police and the U.S. Marshals Service took her into custody, Cleveland 19 News reported.
Source: Cleveland 19 News (WOIO)
Her guilty plea resolved the case without a trial. As part of the plea agreement, a first-degree involuntary manslaughter charge was dismissed, the Repository reported; had she been convicted of that charge, she would have faced up to 11 years in prison. The five-year sentence was imposed on the remaining counts of involuntary manslaughter and endangering children following the plea.
The baby's mother wrote in a public post on Tuesday: 'Due to her negligence, my son is gone forever.' DiMarzio's defence attorney, Daniel Funk, told the sentencing hearing, according to the Repository: 'My client is extremely remorseful for what happened,' adding that part of her reason for pleading guilty was that she did not want the family to go through any more, and calling the death 'an unfortunate tragedy.'
Background: a bed is not a crib
The prosecution's case, as Petricini set it out in court, rested on a single, stark fact: an infant was put to sleep on an adult bed instead of in a crib, and suffocated. Child-safety guidance in the United States has long treated a bare, firm crib as the safe sleep place for infants, precisely because soft bedding and adult beds can block a small baby's airway in ways a sleeping infant cannot escape. Petricini's framing in court, as reported, was negligence: this was not presented as an intentional killing, but as a fatal failure of basic care by the person the family had trusted with their child.
The case also puts unlicensed home daycare itself in the frame. The Repository reported the East Canton operation was unlicensed and cash-only. Unlicensed care sits outside the inspection, training and safe-sleep rules that licensed Ohio providers must follow, which is why arrangements that feel informal and neighbourly can carry risks that only become visible after a tragedy. Awaaz Punjab is not reporting that licensing alone would have prevented this death; it is reporting what the court heard and what the record shows about how this daycare operated.
What happens next
DiMarzio remains out on her existing bond arrangement for now, but the court has ordered her to report to jail on November 9 to begin serving the five-year sentence. The plea agreement and Tuesday's sentencing close the criminal case: there will be no trial, and the dismissed first-degree charge will not return unless the plea itself is overturned, which neither side has announced any move to seek.
For Punjabi diaspora families in Ohio and across the United States who rely on home daycare while both parents work — including the long and irregular hours common in trucking — the questions this case leaves are practical ones to ask any provider before the first day: Is the daycare licensed? Where exactly will my baby sleep? And who else will be in the home? The Stark County court has answered for this family's loss with five years in prison; the prevention questions now sit with every parent choosing care.