Jennifer Prudencio pleaded guilty to manslaughter after leaving three young children without adult supervision during a night out.

BOSTON, Mass. — A Massachusetts mother was sentenced to four to six years in state prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2024 death of her 3-year-old son, ending a case prosecutors said began when she left the sick boy with two elementary-school-age siblings and stayed away overnight.

Jennifer Prudencio also pleaded guilty Sept. 22 to three counts of reckless endangerment of a child in Suffolk Superior Court. Judge Joshua Wall ordered three years of probation after her prison term and gave her credit for 284 days already served. Court-record reporting said she was committed to MCI-Framingham. The sentence resolved criminal charges stemming from the April 7, 2024, death of Prudencio’s son, Yael Guardado-Prudencio, at the family’s apartment in Chelsea.

The punishment went beyond Massachusetts sentencing guidelines, according to courtroom reporting. Prosecutors argued that aggravating circumstances justified a sentence above the guideline range, pointing to the child’s young age, his condition during the final hours of his life and Prudencio’s responsibility as his mother. The defense sought leniency and described significant hardship and abuse in Prudencio’s own background. Wall ultimately imposed the four-to-six-year term without an agreed sentencing recommendation between prosecutors and the defense.

The case began more than two years earlier, when Chelsea police were called to Prudencio’s Spencer Avenue apartment on a Sunday morning. Authorities found Yael unresponsive, and he was pronounced dead. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office announced Prudencio’s arrest two days later. She initially pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment. Prosecutors later obtained an indictment, and court records showed the case had been headed toward a November 2026 trial before Prudencio elected to change her plea.

Prosecutors said Yael had significant medical problems before his death. He had a seizure disorder and hemophilia, a condition that can interfere with the blood’s ability to clot. During the week before he died, prosecutors said, the boy had been vomiting blood and had suffered a facial injury after falling during a seizure. The wound was not healing properly. Prudencio had taken him for medical care twice that week, according to statements prosecutors made in court. On the evening of April 6, they said, he vomited again and appeared pale.

Despite those warning signs, prosecutors said Prudencio left Yael at home with her other two children, who were then 8 and 7. There was no adult supervising them. Prudencio went to a bar in nearby Revere, where prosecutors said she drank for several hours. Rather than returning to Chelsea, she later went to her boyfriend’s home in Somerville and spent the night there. The prosecution’s account focused not merely on the decision to leave but on what happened after Prudencio was told that Yael’s condition was getting worse.

During the night, the 8-year-old contacted his mother repeatedly about his younger brother, according to prosecutors. He reported that Yael was not feeling well and was vomiting. At one point, the older child sent Prudencio a video showing the 3-year-old in distress. Prudencio responded that she would be home soon and told the older child to stay with his younger brother, prosecutors said. She did not return for roughly nine more hours. When she arrived at the apartment around 10 a.m. April 7, Yael was dead.

Those communications became a central part of the prosecution’s account because they showed Prudencio received direct information from inside the apartment while she was away. At her 2024 arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Audrey Mark said Prudencio acknowledged receiving a video and message from her oldest son expressing concern about Yael. Prosecutors said she also acknowledged understanding the seriousness of the younger boy’s health problems. The case therefore centered on what authorities said was a prolonged failure to respond after both earlier medical symptoms and overnight warnings made the danger apparent.

Prudencio’s lawyers presented a different kind of information at sentencing, not to dispute the death or the conduct to which she pleaded guilty but to argue for a lesser punishment. Attorney Peter Marano described a history of abuse and trauma and told the court that Prudencio had struggled with difficult circumstances from a young age. He argued that punishment should be accompanied by an emphasis on rehabilitation. Some mitigation arguments were presented privately at sidebar, according to courtroom reporting. The defense also stressed that no sentence could undo the loss at the center of the case.

The legal path to the guilty plea had itself taken time. Court records reported by The Boston Globe showed that Prudencio underwent multiple evaluations concerning her competency to stand trial. In May 2026, she was ordered hospitalized for 20 days at the Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center for additional evaluation. By August, the court docket indicated that she intended to change her plea. The court later found that her waiver of trial rights was made knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently, allowing the Sept. 22 plea and sentencing to proceed instead of the planned trial.

The sentence also carries restrictions beyond incarceration. Reporting based on court records said Prudencio must receive mental health treatment while on probation and abstain from alcohol and illegal drugs. She must complete a parenting class if she has another child or seeks reunification or visitation with her surviving children. Court TV reported that the two surviving children were living with Prudencio’s mother at the time of sentencing and that the state Department of Children and Families had identified reunification as a goal, though any future family arrangements would remain subject to the relevant child-welfare process and court conditions.

The plea changed Prudencio’s legal status from a defendant who had denied the charges to a person convicted after admitting guilt. When the case began in April 2024, the district attorney’s office emphasized that the allegations had not yet been proven and that Prudencio was entitled to the presumption of innocence. That phase of the case ended with her guilty pleas. Her prison term will now be followed by three years of probation under the conditions set by the court.

Author note: Last updated November 7, 2026.