Jurors found Sheyenne Shore guilty of first-degree murder and child endangerment in the 2023 death of her 7-month-old daughter.

NEVADA, Iowa — A Story County jury has convicted 26-year-old Sheyenne Shore of first-degree murder and child endangerment after prosecutors said her 7-month-old daughter died with broken bones, bruises and internal bleeding that did not match a reported nursery accident.

The verdict, returned April 2, moves the case into sentencing nearly three years after the infant, Xena, was brought to Story County Medical Center on June 11, 2023. Shore’s sentencing is set for June 1. The conviction carries the most serious punishment available under Iowa law for first-degree murder, while the child endangerment count marks the jury’s finding that the baby’s death followed an intentional act.

The case began at the hospital, where medical workers tried to revive Xena after Shore brought her in unresponsive. According to the criminal complaint cited in court records, staff said the baby was already cold and stiff and that her pupils were dilated and fixed. Shore told police the child had hit her head on baby toys during tummy time, and Xena’s father, Juan Angel Montalvo Jr., gave the same account. Both parents denied knowing how the infant suffered the other injuries found by doctors. Investigators later focused on the gap between that account and the medical findings. The Iowa State Medical Examiner concluded the head injuries were not accidental and ruled the death a homicide.

Doctors documented injuries across the baby’s body, including cuts and bruises on her face and torso, a fractured wrist, bleeding in the right eye and hemorrhaging in the liver. Medical staff also noted signs that Xena was healing from earlier fractures to both arms and to a femur, a finding that placed the case beyond a single event described as a fall or bump during play. The complaint said the findings in the brain and eyes were consistent with non-accidental head injuries. Police also searched the apartment where Shore and Montalvo lived in Nevada and found bloodstained baby clothing and blankets. Authorities have not publicly identified a single act that caused every injury, but prosecutors presented the injuries as proof that Xena’s death was the result of abuse rather than a household mishap.

Shore’s statements to investigators became a central part of the case. Police said she told them she had not left Xena alone or with anyone else during the final three days of the baby’s life. Investigators said surveillance video and store receipts told a different story. Those records placed Shore away from the apartment without Xena around 11 a.m. on June 11, the day the child was taken to the hospital. Montalvo was in another part of Nevada that day, according to investigators. The complaint also described text messages sent later that afternoon. Shore began texting Montalvo at 3:10 p.m. to say Xena was unresponsive and that she was taking the baby to the hospital. He did not respond until 3:46 p.m., followed by a short phone call. At 3:59 p.m., Shore texted that the baby was gone and that medical workers had tried everything they could.

Investigators also reviewed what Montalvo told another person after the death. An acquaintance said Montalvo texted that he was going to the hospital because his daughter had hit her head. Around 6 p.m., the same acquaintance said, Montalvo indicated he would return to work by 7 p.m. Those statements became part of a wider record that included the parents’ shared explanation, the timing of hospital contact and the physical evidence found in the apartment. Prosecutors did not have to prove every minute of the baby’s final hours to win a conviction. They had to persuade jurors that Shore committed first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death, and the jury found that they had met that burden.

Montalvo, now 37, was charged with Shore after the death, but his case ended earlier. He pleaded guilty in February 2025 to an amended count of child endangerment causing serious injury and received an indeterminate prison sentence not to exceed 10 years. He also faced financial penalties connected to the case. Shore went to trial on the more serious charges, and jurors found her guilty of first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death by intentional act. Court records and news reports identify Shore as a Nevada resident at the time of the case. Both parents were arrested in Fresno County, California, after leaving Iowa and later were returned to face the Story County charges.

The legal consequences for Shore are shaped by Iowa’s sentencing law for Class A felonies. First-degree murder is treated as a Class A felony, and adult defendants convicted of that offense face life in prison unless the governor later commutes the sentence. The June 1 sentencing will give the court a formal setting to enter judgment, address the child endangerment conviction and hear any statements allowed by law. The hearing also will close the trial phase of a case that began with emergency medical care, expanded into a homicide investigation and ended with a jury rejecting the explanation that Xena’s injuries came from tummy time.

The setting for the case is Nevada, a Story County city east of Ames where the justice center became the final stop for evidence gathered from a hospital room, an apartment search, surveillance records and phone messages. The public record centers on a child too young to speak for herself and on adults who gave investigators an account that doctors said did not fit the injuries. The case has drawn attention in central Iowa because of Xena’s age, the extent of the injuries and the length of time between her death in 2023 and the jury’s decision in 2026.

Currently, Shore awaits sentencing in Story County on June 1. Montalvo is serving his sentence in the separate child endangerment case, and no additional defendants have been publicly identified.

Author note: Last updated April 28, 2026.