SAN ANTONIO – A Bexar County district judge on Monday sentenced D’Lanny Chairez to five years in prison on a charge of tampering with evidence.
Chairez is the mother of baby James Chairez, who was found dead in 2021 after he was missing for more than three months.
D’Lanny Chairez pleaded no contest in May on one count of tampering with evidence. She had been charged with two counts on that charge but prosecutors waived one of them in exchange for the no-contest plea.
She could be facing much more serious time in prison.
Just before D’Lanny Chairez was sentenced, Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales announced that a grand jury Monday indicted her on a new charge.
She is now charged with injury to a child-intentionally or knowingly causing serious bodily injury to a child. D’Lanny Chairez could get up to life in prison if she is convicted on that charge.
Prosecutors alleged Chairez concealed the baby’s body in the West Side trailer where they lived.
Baby James and his mother were reported missing after they were last seen on Jan. 4, 2021.
Police released surveillance images of the pair, as well as surveillance video clips from a drug store and from onboard a VIA Metropolitan Transit bus. In the store video, D’Lanny Chairez is shown pushing a stroller. However, in the bus video, there was no sign of James.
Officers eventually found D’Lanny Chairez in March and arrested her on suspicion of abandoning or endangering a child, but baby James remained missing until April 28, 2021, when authorities found his body during a subsequent search of the mobile home in the 7600 block of W. Military Drive.
According to an arrest affidavit, D’Lanny Chairez told investigators she didn’t feel ready to be a mother and that she thought her son “deserved better” and was considering putting him up for adoption.