YAKIMA — A Yakima woman has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the death of her infant daughter.
Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic announced at a news conference Thursday that Kyleah Rose Tolle, 20, also was charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment and family abandonment in connection with the 7-month-old girl. She also faces charges of criminal mistreatment and family abandonment for her 2-year-old daughter, whom Yakima police found starving in the home.
“We believe that we will aggressively move forward on this case,” Brusic said. “It is truly horrific.”
Brusic and Yakima police leaders described the investigative effort that went into locating Tolle at a campground off State Route 410.
Tolle is currently being held in the Yakima County jail in lieu of $20,000 bail on the case involving her children, in addition to $5,000 bail on a 2023 case where she is accused of starving a pair of dogs, resulting in the death of one of them.
Yakima police went to an apartment in the 300 block of North Fourth Avenue around 7:25 a.m. Tuesday for a welfare check after a woman called and told police that her 7-month-old baby was possibly dead in the apartment.
In the 911 call, the suspect said that she was leaving and was going to kill herself.
After first knocking, officers went into the unlocked apartment and heard a child crying. They found a 2-year-old girl in a crib and a dead baby in a bassinet, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Paramedics pronounced the baby dead at the scene. Police said it appeared the baby had been dead for some time and both children had been neglected, the affidavit said.
The baby’s death is the second homicide in the city this year, and the fourth in the county.
The older child was taken first to MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital and then transferred to a Seattle hospital, YPD Chief Shawn Boyle said.
Police said Tolle was living alone at the apartment.
Yakima police Capt. Jay Seely, who commands the patrol division, said YPD’s Proactive Enforcement team took the task of running down leads in the community while detectives concentrated on the crime scene.
“They’re very good at what they do and they are relentless,” Seely said. “In this case, they contacted associates, they contacted family members, they contacted anyone that may have had information about the case.”
A tip from one person led sheriff’s deputies and the YPD officers to Squaw Rock Resort and Campground 10 miles northeast of Naches.
Sgt. Ryan Wisner, who supervises the team, said Tolle was found at the campground’s store using the Wi-Fi signal. Tolle had a note on the back of her car asking for gasoline, after running out of fuel. Wisner said it did not appear that Tolle was planning to camp at the campground.
Brusic and Seely commended the community for its assistance in the investigation.
“This is what it looks like when a community gets behind their police department,” Seely said. “We had numerous phone calls. The community wanted to find Ms. Tolle as badly as we did, and thankfully their effort paid off.”
Lt. Chad Janis, who heads the detective division, said YPD is working with state Child Protective Services on the case. He declined to say if CPS or YPD had any previous calls about the children’s welfare before, as that would be a CPS matter.
Nancy Gutierrez, state Division of Children, Youth and Families spokesperson, said she could not comment on the case due to the ongoing investigation, as well as federal and state laws that prohibit distribution of child welfare records.
Boyle and Janis said the officers who worked on the case are meeting with peer counselors to help process the trauma they witnessed at the scene.
Brusic said his office is discussing whether to ask the court to increase Tolle’s bail in light of the new charges. At Tolle’s hearing Wednesday, Deputy Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Diane Hehir asked for a half-million dollars in total bail for the case, while a public defender representing Tolle for the case argued for a $20,000 aggregate bail due to Tolle’s limited financial resources.
Brusic said the earlier case involving the abuse of two dogs at her home in December 2023 was not filed then because of a shortage of attorneys in both his office and the county’s Office of Assigned Counsel, which provides attorneys for indigent defendants.
“The last several years we’ve had to make very difficult decisions,” Brusic said. “And this was a decision that was made within our office to not charge it out in lieu of potential, more serious charges. And obviously there was no indication whatsoever that any event like this would take place.”
In the 2023 case, a neighbor told police they saw two dogs at Tolle’s home, and that one was dead and the other was tangled in a leash. On Christmas 2023, community service officers found a dead German shepherd in a kennel with no bedding or shelter, and a husky that had a leash tangled around its leg, according to a probable cause affidavit.
A necropsy determined the shepherd died from severe malnutrition, and the husky was “severely emaciated.”
