COLUMUBS – Jeremy Sweet, of Columbus, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty in Bartholomew Superior Court to neglect of a dependent resulting in the death of his 2-year-old dauther, Emma Sweet.
Jeremy Sweet received a 30-year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction for his neglect charge, and an additional 10 years because of his past criminal history, which largely involved drug-related offenses. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in a negotiated plea deal.
Jeremy and Emma Sweet were last seen together on November 24, 2021 and the two were reported missing by a family member on Thanksgiving day.
The father and daughter were reported missing on Thanksgiving Day in 2021. One day later, duck hunters found Jeremy Sweet inside his pickup that was partially submerged in the White River. Emma remained missing, prompting a search that drew investigators from 14 law enforcement agencies.
Sweet was taken to a Columbus hospital to be treated for hypothermia and frostbite. Sheriff’s deputies learned the child had been with her father when the pickup went into the water.
Jeremy told detectives he got lost on a dirt road and while trying to move the truck, it went over an embankment into the river. According to police the area where the truck was found required going off-road, around barriers, and down a 15 to 20-foot embankment into the river.
Emma’s body was pulled from the East Fork of White River on Sunday, November 28, 2021. She was submerged in a debris pile about half of a mile from the location where Emma’s cream color jacket with butterflies on it was found the day before, roughly two miles downstream from where her father’s truck was found.
Investigators say no blunt trauma was found during Emma’s autopsy. The Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office ruled her death a homicide, specifically “complications of hypothermia and asphyxia due to drowning.”
