An Indianapolis mother who avoided prison time for a 2019 child neglect case that resulted in her infant daughter’s death is back in jail, now accused of leaving her four young children home alone for weeks, with an 8-year-old acting as the primary caregiver.

The case against Tenisha Echols, 27, has sparked renewed outrage and is raising serious questions about the justice system’s handling of child abuse cases in Marion County.

Police were called to an apartment on Troy Avenue this week after the children’s grandmother received a tearful phone call from her 8-year-old granddaughter. According to the affidavit, the child told her grandmother she was home alone and had been left to care for her three younger siblings, including a 4-month-old infant, for most of the past two weeks.

When officers arrived, they found the home littered with trash and old food and reported there were no sheets on the children’s beds. They arrested Echols on new charges of child neglect.

The arrest is especially alarming given Echols’ history. At the time of this week’s incident, Echols was on probation after her 6-month-old daughter died from blunt force injuries in 2019. Though initially charged with neglect resulting in death, Echols reached a plea deal in 2023 and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of neglect resulting in injury.

In that case, Echols was sentenced to two years of home detention and two years of probation, allowing her to avoid any time in prison for her daughter’s death.

That sentence is now under a harsh spotlight.

Echols is currently being held in the Marion County Jail and prosecutors have already filed a motion to revoke her probation from the 2023 conviction, a move that could finally send her to prison.