UPDATE 8/30/08 – Heidi Dieball pleaded guilty on Friday to second-degree intentional murder and two counts of child abuse in connection with the death of toddler Andrew Haga. As part of the plea bargain, she admitted to intentionally beating the child to death. She will be sentenced October 24 and will likely serve about 19 years for her crimes. Details at the bottom of this article.
Wichita, KS (January 10, 2008) - Heidi Dieball, 24, has some serious furniture. On January 4, according to Heidi, her couch killed 19-month-old Andrew Haga. Andrew’s mother Athena Haga had left Andrew with Heidi, her roommate, overnight on January 3.
Early the next morning, Heidi called Athena to let her know that baby Andrew wasn’t breathing and reportedly asked, “What should I do?” Andrew’s mom flipped out and told Heidi to call 911. She may have added “dumbass”. I know I would have.
When emergency workers arrived sometime later, they found a dead baby Andrew… and a lying sack of shit named Heidi.
Heidi’s story is that Andrew just boom, fell off the couch. As all nineteen month old children are prone to at four in the morning. But it seems that Heidi’s couch, it’s a badass couch. Because while Andrew was falling off of it, the couch scratched Andrew all up and slammed his head hard enough to cause a fatal brain bleed.
I know, right? That damn couch, beating on babies like that.
Heidi was unemployed and moved in with Athena and Andrew Haga on Christmas Eve. The arrangement was that Heidi could live rent-free in exchange for babysitting. If I were Athena Haga, I think I’d be asking for back rent, but it’ll be tough to collect with Heidi in jail on murder charges in lieu of $500,000.00 bond.
UPDATE 8/30/08:
So maybe it wasn’t the couch after all. Heidi Dieball has taken a plea deal that allowed her to plead guilty to second degree intentional murder and two counts of child abuse in connection with the death of Andrew Haga.  In court on Friday, Dieball admitted that she beat Andrew Haga twice while she was left alone with him in January. Then – holy cats, get this – Heidi said she beat that baby a third time to kill him. On PURPOSE.
The autopsy report showed that Andrew had “at least 24 bruises on his head and multiple bruises on his chest, hips and stomach”, and that that Andrew died of severe head injuries.
Because Heidi pleaded to second-degree murder, she’ll be sentenced to about nineteen years instead of the life sentence she was facing under the original first-degree murder charge. I’m still trying to figure out how intentional murder is second-degree, but whatever. At least the couch is off the hook.
Tags: babysitter, Child Murder, Kansas, Wichita
