New York Girl Aged Three Dies From Severe Neglect After Hoarding Parents Leave Her in Horrific Lice Infestation

A three-year-old girl from upstate New York died after months of neglect so severe that a lice infestation left her anaemic, and both of her parents have now been sent to prison.

Joycelynn Ann Dylewski died in February 2025 after emergency crews found her struggling to breathe inside a Corinth apartment that was later condemned. Her parents, Matthew and Samantha Dylewski, each pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and received the maximum sentence available under New York law.

Their case has since pushed state lawmakers to call for far harsher penalties in the deaths of neglected children.

The Conditions Inside a Condemned Corinth Apartment

Emergency responders were called to the family's Main Street home on 19 February 2025 after the parents reported that Joycelynn could not breathe. Hospital staff at Saratoga Hospital pronounced her dead a short time later. The Saratoga County Sheriff's Office ruled the death a homicide caused by complications of acute and chronic neglect.

Investigators who entered the apartment described scenes that disturbed even seasoned officials. According to accounts presented in court, state police found that their boots stuck to the floors, the kitchen sink was clogged with sludge, and the rooms were overrun by lice and other insects. A contractor later hired to clear the property said he had to shovel trash from the floors and found dead flies and bugs throughout.

Photographs taken at the time showed rooms filled with trash, soiled furniture, and debris, and the building was condemned on the day the couple were arraigned. The village building inspector described the home as one of the worst he had ever seen. Four other children were living in the same conditions when Joycelynn died.

The Evidence Presented at Sentencing

Prosecutors laid out the child's suffering in unsparing terms.

Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Buckley told the court that the death was entirely preventable, and that Joycelynn had endured a lice infestation lasting weeks and months that developed into anaemia.

The girl's teeth were black and decayed, her hair was matted, and she had gone without medical care for roughly 10 months, the only one of the five children in the home to receive none.

Buckley also said the toddler had clonidine, a prescription blood-pressure medicine, in her system, despite having no heart condition and no prescription for the drug. The prosecutor said Samantha Dylewski first blamed one of her other children, but that investigators found text messages in which the parents discussed giving the medication to Joycelynn. When she spoke to police, Buckley added, the mother blamed her three-year-old for the lack of lice treatment.

Both parents addressed the court before sentencing. Samantha Dylewski said she had been negligent to the point that it cost her daughter's life, calling it a tragedy beyond any other.

At his own hearing, Matthew Dylewski told the judge, 'I wish it was me that died instead of my daughter.'

A Proposed 'Joycelynn's Law' and the Push for Tougher Penalties

Saratoga County Court Judge James Davis handed each parent the maximum term of one and one-third to four years in prison. He told Matthew Dylewski that his sole job had been to keep his daughter safe, that he had failed most horrifically, and that the death was completely preventable and unconscionable. Samantha Dylewski was sentenced on 8 June 2026, and Matthew on 22 June 2026, and full stay-away orders protect the four surviving children until June 2038.

The sentences, capped at four years, prompted immediate calls for reform. State Senator Jim Tedisco and Assemblyman Matt Simpson, backed by District Attorney Brett Eby, announced proposed legislation called 'Joycelynn's Law' that would raise the maximum penalty for criminally negligent homicide of a child to 20 years to life.

Tedisco said the toddler had endured sickening and unimaginable harm, and argued that the neglect amounted to premeditated actions carried out over a long period rather than a single moment of anger.

For a child who went without a doctor for the last 10 months of her short life, the law that now carries her name may become the most lasting measure of what was lost.