I-TEAM: Mother charged in toddler’s beating death hit with new theft charge while out on bond
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Denishia Yates, 26, is back behind bars about a month after she faced charges in the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Blessing Buckles. The WAFB I-TEAM has discovered she has been hit with theft charges tied to an incident from October 2023.
Yates, her friend Terica Scott as well as a 10-year-old and 12-year-old boy are all facing charges. The two boys are accused of beating Yate’s young daughter to death. Court records show the two adults in the situation were out at the Casino at the time. Deputies say they later learned eight children— ranging in age from 11 months old to 12 years old— were all left alone inside the home for hours.
According to arrest records, Yates told police she had previously seen bruises on some of the other kids in the home. The WAFB I-TEAM has learned the Department of Children and Family Services already had the situation on their radar, launching a prior investigation into what may have been going on inside the home.
Yates, who was out on bond for charges tied to her daughter’s death and being tracked through an ankle monitor, now faces new theft charges. The arrest report shows she was out at a casino back in October. The investigator say she met a man and decided to go back to his place. At one point during the night, that man went to the bathroom and came out of the bathroom to find that Yates had left. The man later filed a complaint accusing Yates of swiping his watch from the kitchen counter and stealing more than $800 from his car. The arrest report states Yates even transferred about $700 from the man’s Cash App account. The warrant was issued in this case just days after she had gotten out of prison on the charges tied to her daughter’s death. The warrant was issued a few days after Yates had gotten out of prison.
Assistant Chief Clifton Ivey with the Central Police Department says they picked Yates up on the charges after she was caught speeding and pulled over for a traffic stop. That stop revealed she had new warrants on the theft charges. Ivey says the fact that she was out on bond and roaming free with these new charges hanging over her points to a larger problem.
“Yes it’s quite common and it actually harkens back to something Chief Murphy Paul said in reference to when he aired his grievance on TV one time about how we have a small number of offenders in the Baton Rouge area who are continuing to repeat crimes and this may be an instance of that,” said Ivey.
Ivey says right now in East Baton Rouge district court, judges are working to reorganize the way they handle pre-trial monitoring so that repeat offenders are tracked more closely. While it’s too early to tell how well that may work, he says it’s clear something has to change.
”I don’t believe the current system is sustainable for the city of Baton Rouge,” said Ivey. “I mean our murders are high compared to last year, this year so something clearly has to be done. It’s not sustainable the way it is.”
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