Channel Yonko accused of deliberately dropping baby from Galveston hotel balcony: court documents

HOUSTON – A girl who died after she was found bleeding on a Galveston street had punctured tires on her back and was allegedly deliberately fallen from a hotel balcony by her mother, court documents show.

An arrest warrant affidavit reveals heartbreaking details about the death of 17-month-old Hannah Yonko. Her mother, 30-year-old Channel Yonko, has been charged with capital murder and is being held in jail without bond.

SUGGESTED: Channel Yonko, charged in the death of a baby found in Galveston, has been denied bond

Police say Hannah was found with traumatic injuries around 9:45 a.m. Wednesday in the 3300 block of 59th Street, on the east side of the Beach Front Palms Hotel.

She was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

According to the affidavit of a Galveston police detective, police learned the girl had three stab wounds.

Police released a description of a woman leaving from the location where the baby was found, and an officer a short time later found a crying woman matching the description less than a mile away, according to the document.

The woman reportedly asked the officer for help and began making comments about her daughter and that she might be sick.

She was taken to the police station for questioning. According to the affidavit, she said she wanted to speak to an attorney and did not want to give her name to police.

According to the document, Channel’s sister was also at the police station and told police she had stayed at the hotel with Channel and Channel’s daughter.

Channel Yonko (left) and Hannah Yonko (right)

On Wednesday, the sister and Channel were gathering their things to check out when the sister left to try to talk to her fiancé at The Victorian in the 6300 block of Seawall Boulevard. The sister claims Channel came to The Victorian while pushing a stroller. She initially said the baby was inside, but told officials she had not actually seen the baby and had no reason to believe she was not in the stroller.

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The sister told officials that she informed Channel that she was going back to their hotel to retrieve their luggage because she could not find her fiancé, but Channel repeatedly told her “don’t go back to the hotel.”

Court records show that detectives found a garbage bag in the parking garage beneath the hotel near where the baby was found and that it contained a room key to the room the sisters and the baby were staying in, a “skinning knife,” plastic sand toys, unused diapers. and unopened children’s snacks.

Video footage obtained by investigators shows Channel in the lobby of the Beach Front Palms Hotel pushing Hannah in a stroller. You see the child’s foot moving in the stroller. Shortly afterwards, the video from the second story shows baby Hannah falling from what appeared to be the third floor, landing on the grass and rolling onto the concrete sidewalk. Hannah’s empty pram was found in The Victorian.

Documents state that Hannah’s clothing she was wearing and the blanket she was wrapped in did not have stab wounds such as those found on her back.