Florida toddler dies after parents ‘decided to leave her in car seat’ when she fell asleep
Toddler girl dies after Florida parents ‘decided to leave her in car seat’ when she fell asleep on drive home: Two-year-old found 14 hours later with a temperature of 107 degrees
- Two-year-old Florida girl died after her parents left her in the car seat for more than 14 hours
- The girl’s parents left her asleep in the car when they entered her house after work – they didn’t find her until after 3pm the next day
- The Holmes County Sheriff blamed the tragedy on drug use, as investigators say they found methamphetamine at the couple’s home.
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A 2-year-old Florida girl who fell asleep in a hot car has died after police say her parents left her for 14 hours inside the sweltering vehicle.
The girl’s parents, Kathreen Adams, 23, and Christopher McLean, 32, were arrested and charged with child neglect and possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.
Additional charges are likely to be added later, Holmes County Sheriff John Tate said.
Mugshots of Christopher McLean, 32, and Kathreen Adams, 23, the parents of the boy who died after being left in a car for 14 hours.
Deputies responded to a home in the Prosperity neighborhood of the Florida Panhandle around 3:45 p.m. on May 16 after a heartbroken woman called 911.
Tate said the emergency operator was unable to get the necessary information from the woman because she was screaming so much.
The deputy who responded was received at the house by a person who was carrying the unconscious child.
The officer immediately began administering CPR until emergency services arrived. The boy was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Initially, Adams told authorities that she found her daughter unconscious inside the house. However, according to the sheriff, the child’s temperature was 107 degrees, making her story implausible.
During their investigation, authorities learned that the girl had been left in the car for about 14 hours. Adams finally admitted to officers that she had left work around midnight and had gone to a relative’s house to pick up her two- and four-year-old children.
The couple then took the children home, the sheriff said.
The baby was asleep in the car seat. They decided to leave the child in the car and they went inside and eventually fell asleep and didn’t wake up or realize the child was in the car until around 3:41 p.m.,” she said.
It added that Adams “deliberately, through his own statement, purposefully left the girl in the car overnight.”
McLean was uncooperative, invoked his right “and did not want to give us a statement or speak to us at the time,” Tate said.
Sheriff John Tate told reporters his message to the community after the tragic incident is: Don’t do drugs. I honestly believe that methamphetamine drugs are to blame for this death’
It’s unclear exactly what time the couple discovered their daughter inside the car and when 911 was subsequently called.
Adams also told police that the four-year-old boy got out of the car and went into the house.
‘We don’t have any evidence whether he was in the car or in the house. That’s something we’re still trying to figure out,” the sheriff said.
The four-year-old has since been placed in the custody of the Department of Children and Families.
A resulting search of the couple’s home turned up methamphetamine, marijuana, CBD gummies and drug paraphernalia, the sheriff’s office told reporters.
Adams confirmed to authorities that she and McLean had smoked marijuana after entering the home.
The sheriff said his message to the community was: ‘Don’t do drugs. I honestly believe that the meth, the drugs, are to blame for this death.
“That’s what happens when you use drugs, you lose the sense of what’s happening in reality and these kinds of things happen. Probably if they weren’t on drugs, we probably wouldn’t be here today,” he continued.
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