A former day-care provider entered a no-contest plea Friday to felony child endangerment for an April 2005 incident in which a baby suffered suspicious injuries while in her care.

Maryanna Rose Rawlings, former operator of a day care at her home at 1824 North 1100 Road, faces probation under state sentencing guidelines and is due to be sentenced Nov. 28. She was charged last month by Douglas County Dist. Atty. Charles Branson’s office with allowing the 8-month-old baby girl to be put in a situation “in which the child’s life, body or health could be injured or endangered.”

Rawlings had her license suspended immediately after the incident, and she agreed to surrender it after an administrative hearing in summer 2005.

The baby’s mother testified at the administrative hearing that when she went to pick up her daughter at Rawlings’ house April 7, 2005, the girl was motionless, pale and barely breathing.

Rawlings told her the baby had passed out, she said, and the mother took her to the hospital.

The mother testified that after several days of testing at Children’s Mercy Hospital, doctors told her and her husband that the baby had been “shaken not once but twice” and that it appeared her skull had struck a flat surface, most likely a wall or floor.

Branson said Rawlings was charged with child endangerment – not the more severe crime of child abuse – because it couldn’t be proved exactly how the girl’s injuries happened or when.

His office conducted a special “inquisition” behind closed doors in August in which members of Rawlings’ family were subpoenaed and called to testify. He said it yielded enough information to rule out that someone else had caused the injuries, and enough to show that Rawlings could be charged with child endangerment.

But exactly what happened remains a mystery. Branson said that Rawlings was called to testify at the inquisition but invoked her right against self-incrimination.

“If we bought her story, we wouldn’t have filed the charge,” he said.

The victim’s parents said they weren’t yet ready Friday to go into detail about the case, but they said their daughter has made a good recovery.