Seven-month-old Abigail Lobisch died Feb. 24, 2019, in an unlicensed day care at a Hawaii military housing complex. (Anna Lobisch)
FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii — A Honolulu jury on Friday found Dixie Denise Villa, 46, guilty of manslaughter in the 2019 death of an infant at the unlicensed day care she operated out of her home in military housing, according to court records.
Abigail Lobisch, 7 months old, died from an overdose of an allergy drug while staying overnight at Villa’s home at Aliamanu Military Reservation in Honolulu.
At the time, Villa was married to an active-duty Navy sailor. The couple has since divorced, according to court records.
Villa, who faces up to 20 years in prison, is slated for sentencing on Feb. 26. She was immediately taken into custody after the verdict was read, according to a report by KHON-TV in Honolulu.
Her bail was set at $500,000, the station reported.
Dixie Denise Villa, 46, was found guilty of manslaughter in the February 2019 death of a 7-month-old at the unlicensed home day care she ran at Aliamanu Military Reservation in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Honolulu Police Department)
An autopsy report found Abigail’s death was caused by a lethal amount of diphenhydramine in her bloodstream.
Diphenhydramine is an over-the-counter antihistamine used to relieve symptoms of allergies and colds.
The drug, which also goes by the brand name Benadryl, also induces sleep. Children younger than age 6 are advised not to use diphenhydramine unless directed by a doctor.
Toxicology testing found the level of diphenhydramine in the girl’s blood stream at 2,400 nanograms per milliliter — almost twice the average level found in children who have died from the drug, court documents said.
The infant’s mother, Anna Lobisch, had been using Villa’s day care services for about four months.
On Feb. 23, 2019, she dropped Abigail and her 2-year-old brother off at the Aulani Hotel, a Disney resort, where Villa had stayed the previous night with her two children, according to the criminal complaint filed with Hawaii First Circuit District Court.
The children were badly sunburned after spending most of the day at the resort’s pool.
Villa told Honolulu Police Department detectives she only applied lotion on them.
Some of Villa’s neighbors complained numerous times to housing and military authorities that she was operating an unlicensed day care at her home in the Army-run housing community.
A probe conducted by U.S. Army Hawaii after the death concluded that the contractor licensed to run the housing area did not have a “consistent, streamlined process” for evicting tenants operating unauthorized home day care.
Aliamanu is one of many military housing communities in Hawaii operated as Island Palm Communities by the Australia-based Lendlease Corp. in conjunction with the U.S. Army.
