Court accepts insanity plea from KC mother charged in malnourished daughter’s death
A Kansas City mother whose young daughter was found dead in late 2022, her body severely malnourished, has been committed to the care of the Department of Mental Health.
Adair Fish pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on May 4, a spokesperson with the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office said. She had been charged with multiple counts related to the death of her daughter, Ivy House, 4, including one count of child abuse or neglect resulting in death.
“After mental health evaluations by our office’s experts and the Department of Mental Health, our office and the Court accepted Ms. Fish’s plea,” said Jazzlyn Johnson, of the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
In November 2022, police discovered Ivy dead inside a bedroom in their Kansas City apartment, wrapped in blankets. The child’s malnourished body was already decomposing. Ivy and her twin sister’s fifth birthday was in six days.
The surviving twin, identified in court records as AH, was malnourished and unresponsive when first responders arrived.
Police described conditions in home
In court records, police described the apartment along St. John Avenue as “cluttered with trash, debris, old food and miscellaneous other items.”
The trash was piled high and, according to records, “there was a strong odor of death in the air.”
Fish was also charged in relationship to the treatment of Ivy’s twin sister. Those charges included one count of child abuse with serious injury.
The mother had called 911 just before 4:30 p.m. Nov. 3, 2022 to report that one of her twin daughters was dead, and the other was unresponsive, prosecutors say. During the call, Fish allegedly stated that one of the girls had been dead for an extended period of time.
The girls had been removed from their mother’s care when they were younger and returned to their mother in late 2019.
When the pandemic hit a few months later, neighbors said Fish became more isolated. One neighbor said he stopped seeing the two girls and Fish only seemed to come out of the apartment to pick up Amazon packages.
