Household witnesses said they noticed nothing suspicious before hearing screams, leaving medical findings and other evidence to help reconstruct the night.
LAKELAND, Fla. — Other people were inside the home when a 3-month-old boy suffered the injuries that investigators say caused his death, but none of them told detectives they saw what happened. They believed the infant and his mother, Jessica Vlasac, were sleeping in a bedroom. Their first sign of an emergency, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, was the sound of Vlasac screaming.
That absence of a publicly identified eyewitness shaped the investigation that followed. Detectives had to piece together events using what household members could describe, Vlasac’s own account, communications with the baby’s father and medical evidence discovered after the child was pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed three separate impact injuries to the infant’s head, authorities said. One had a distinctive shape that eventually drew attention to a large diamond-like ring Vlasac was wearing during a later interview. Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Nelson subsequently advised investigators that the injuries were consistent with the child having been struck by the ring and that co-sleeping did not cause the death.
The emergency unfolded late Sept. 6. Deputies were dispatched to Vlasac’s Lakeland home at about 11:58 p.m. for a report of an unresponsive baby. The child was rushed to Orlando Health Medical in Lakeland and was pronounced dead shortly afterward, the sheriff’s office said. Authorities noted an abrasion and bruising on his head. His name has not been publicly released. Investigators said Vlasac, then 42, had been caring for the child in her room while other members of the household were elsewhere in the residence. Those people said they did not know anything was wrong until they heard her scream.
Vlasac initially described a scenario involving sleep rather than an assault. She told deputies she had accidentally fallen asleep with the baby in bed and could not remember anything else. She said she later woke to find him face down, cold and motionless. According to authorities, she also told deputies that she thought she had killed their son, while indicating that she believed it happened while she slept. That account gave investigators an initial explanation to compare against the physical evidence. The sheriff’s office has not said that any witness saw Vlasac fall asleep with the child or observed the period immediately before he became unresponsive.
The autopsy supplied information the people inside the house could not. Nelson identified subdural hemorrhaging as well as three separate impacts to the head, according to investigators. One injury on the forehead was L-shaped and measured approximately 1.7 centimeters by 1 centimeter. The medical examiner said it appeared consistent with an impact from a square-like object. Unlike the household accounts, which mainly established who was where and when the emergency became apparent, the autopsy indicated that the child had sustained multiple blows or impacts. Authorities have not released the full report, and the publicly available summary does not provide the precise timing of each injury.
The investigation then moved from the medical examiner’s description back to an interview room. When detectives spoke with Vlasac again, they noticed a ring on her finger with a large diamond-like stone. Its shape appeared to correspond with the square-like object Nelson had described, according to the sheriff’s office. Detectives obtained a warrant to seize the ring along with Vlasac’s electronic devices. During that search, investigators said, she asked whether the ring was what had killed the baby. The question was included in the sheriff’s account, but authorities did not say Vlasac confessed to intentionally using the ring against the child.
Nelson later examined the actual ring and told investigators that the infant’s injuries were consistent with having been struck by it as part of the impacts, the sheriff’s office said. He also advised there was no evidence that co-sleeping caused the death. Those conclusions were significant because they gave detectives a possible physical explanation for at least part of the injury pattern while undermining the accidental scenario Vlasac had described. Still, the public materials do not say exactly when each impact occurred, whether all three injuries were caused in the same manner or what evidence, beyond the shape comparison, the medical examiner used in reaching the conclusion.
Investigators also looked outside the home for information about the hours preceding the emergency. The child’s father showed detectives messages between himself and Vlasac, authorities said. According to the sheriff’s office, those communications indicated that she bought alcoholic shots at approximately noon that day. The father told detectives that Vlasac becomes violent when she drinks, an allegation attributed specifically to him. Later that night, investigators said, she sent multiple messages stating that she had killed the baby and that he was dead. Detectives also determined that some messages had been deleted. The full conversations have not been released publicly.
The father’s account extended into the days after the death. He told investigators Vlasac later called him and seemed unusually normal while discussing what had happened. That description reflects his impression of her demeanor rather than an objective forensic finding. He also said Vlasac asked him not to show their messages to detectives. Authorities cited the reported request in their account of the investigation, placing it alongside her statements on the night of the death and the deleted communications. The sheriff’s office has not disclosed whether investigators recovered all deleted material from her devices or whether any additional electronic evidence changed the known timeline.
Viewed together, the evidence publicly described by investigators fills some of the space left by the lack of an eyewitness but not all of it. Household members placed Vlasac alone with the child before the emergency became known. The medical examiner documented injuries that investigators say could not be explained by sleeping beside the infant. A ring provided a physical object that Nelson associated with the injury pattern. Messages captured statements authorities considered relevant before and after the child was found. What the released materials do not supply is a complete narrative of the private moments inside the room: precisely what happened, in what sequence and why.
Vlasac was arrested Sept. 10 and accused of aggravated child abuse in connection with the death. The sheriff’s office described the count as a first-degree felony. Separate jail information reported by news organizations also listed resisting an officer with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer, firefighter or emergency medical worker, but the agency’s detailed account of the infant investigation did not explain the events underlying those allegations. As in any criminal case, the charges are accusations. The available materials reviewed for this report do not show that Vlasac has been convicted in connection with the infant’s death.
The sheriff’s office said its investigation was ongoing when it publicly announced the arrest. Early reporting identified court proceedings expected in October, but a reliable later source establishing a final outcome of those proceedings was not located in the material reviewed through Oct. 21. The infant has remained publicly unidentified, and authorities have not announced a motive or released the complete autopsy and investigative file. The case therefore remains defined by an unusual evidentiary problem: no publicly identified witness has described the fatal event itself, while investigators say the evidence left behind in the room, on the child, on a ring and in digital communications pointed away from the explanation initially given.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 21, 2026.