Trial set for mom accused of abusing girl whose decomposing body found in KC apartment
A March trial date has been set for a woman whose malnourished daughter was found dead inside a bedroom in their northeast Kansas City apartment.
Adair Fish, who appeared before a judge Thursday, is now on house arrest after being jailed for many months. The judge said she would like to conduct periodic check-ins before the trial is scheduled to begin March 4.
Fish’s public defender, Anthony Vibbard, filed a motion in early June of his “intent to rely on the defense of mental disease or defect,” according to court records.
In November, police discovered Fish’s daughter, Ivy House, dead inside a bedroom in their 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.
Fish had called 911 just before 4:30 p.m. Nov. 3 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.
Fish is charged with one count of child abuse or neglect resulting in death, one count of child abuse with serious injury, one count of first-degree child endangerment resulting in death, and one count of child endangerment resulting in physical injury.
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.
