The judge wanted Lisa Marie Morris to be a lesson to all other parents — if you forget your child in a hot car, you go to jail.
Morris, 26, was sentenced last week to five years in prison followed by five years on probation for leaving her baby inside her car. Morris and her cousin had returned to her Augusta, Ga., area home after running errands on Aug. 7, 2008, and Morris says she thought the cousin had brought the child inside. Instead, Dalton Morris, who was just six weeks old, died in the car, where temperatures reached up to 126 degrees.
Morris pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and asked the judge not to send her to jail because she needs to take care of her 5-year-old daughter.
But Judge Michael N. Annis showed no mercy, the Augusta Chronicle reported. He said that Dalton’s death was completely preventable.
A teacher’s aide apparently forgot to take her seven-month-old girl to a babysitter and instead left the child in a school parking lot while she worked on Friday. Addeleena Sanchez died after being left in the car for five hours on Friday at Bowie Elementary School near Dallas, the Corsicana Daily Sun reported.
The child’s mother, 23, called her babysitter around 1:20 p.m., and that’s when she realized that she had forgotten the girl in the car. The temperature then in Corsicana, Tex., was 89 degrees. Police are investigating and have not yet decided whether to charge the mother.
So far this year, 29 kids have died after being left in hot cars. See stories about the tragedies here.
One-year-old Giselle Gomez was so overheated after being left in a car that her face and body became covered with yellow heat blisters. The child died on Wednesday, and now her mother, Jennifer Gomez, has been jailed and charged with felony child endangerment.
Jennifer Gomez, 22, had left Giselle and her two-year-old sister in the car while she visited at relative at an insurance agency in Belleville, Mo. The kids had been sleeping, and the car’s engine was left running, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The older child might have accidently turned on the heater, but later managed to leave the car and was not injured, detectives told the newspaper. Giselle wasn’t so lucky — she was strapped into a car seat — and was trapped inside the hot vehicle for at least an hour. The outside temperature at the time was 89 degrees.
A four-year-old girl died of heat exposure after falling asleep in her family’s SUV while it was parked at a fleamarket in Brownsville, Tex., on on Sunday. Her mom has been charged with felony abandonment and/or endangerment of a child.
Felicitas Alexandra Cordova is the 23rd child this year to die from hypothermia or heat stroke as a result of being in a hot, parked vehicle, according to a S.F. State meterologist who tracks the trend. More info on hot-car deaths nationwide is here.
The high temperature on Sunday in Brownsville was 96 degrees. Olga Salazar, 37, was running three booths at the flea market with her older children when she lost track of Felicitas, authorities said. It’s unclear why the girl opened the door and got inside the vehicle.
“She went in there and went to sleep or was in there sleeping,” Police Lt. Orlando Rodriguez told the Brownsville Herald. “She could have easily gone in there and lost consciousness (from) the heat, which is something that unfortunately happens.”
She cared enough about the sick pet, but the baby got left behind. A suburban Atlanta mom left her 2-month-old baby boy in her sweltering SUV as she took her pet to the vet last Thursday, police said. She did, however, take her other two kids inside the office with her.
A passerby called cops after spotting the sweating child, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. He had been in the Ford Expedition for about 40 minutes, with the windows rolled up, authorities said. The temperature inside was estimated at 90 degrees.
The baby was treated at a hospital and released into the care of other relatives. His mother, 38-year-old Dawn Myers, was arrested and charged with cruelty to children. It was not reported what type of pet she took to the vet’s office and that animal’s condition.
A North Dakota mom has been busted for hitting the bottle while her baby was hitting the boob. Stacey Anvarinia, 26, pled guilty to child neglect for breastfeeding her six-week-old while intoxicated, according to UPI.
The mom was arrested at her Grand Forks home when police, who were at the residence on another matter, observed her breastfeeding while drunk. Alcohol can be passed on to an infant or baby through the mother’s milk.
Maureen Lee and her 3-year-old daughter, Maya, were walking on a trail near their home in British Columbia, Canada, when the cougar appeared in front of them. The 88-pound animal pushed little Maya down and got on top her.
Lee didn’t have time to feel scared. She was angry, and her maternal instincts took over. She says she pushed the cougar off her little girl, picked up the child and ran, the Vancouver Sun reported. She didn’t stop running until she got to a neighbor’s house. Maya suffered cuts to her head and left arm and required stitches.
Later on Tuesday night, conservation officers scoured the trail and found the cougar suspected in the attack. The animal was then killed. Experts say that cougars are usually elusive and avoid people.
Lee says that her daughter seems to have recovered from the attack, and they won’t let the incident deter them from enjoying nature. “I don’t want her to be afraid of the forest,” Lee says. “I don’t want her to be afraid of picking berries. I want her to understand that this was a unique situation.”
Photo by Digital Art 2
Paging driver’s ed!
While learning to drive, a 17-year-old girl broke her mother’s legs when she stepped on the gas instead of the brake. The mom was sitting on a fence in a movie theater parking lot when the driving lesson went awry, according to the Associated Press.
The girl’s father was cited for allowing an unlicensed driver to operate a vehicle. For a father and daughter perspective on teaching your teen to drive, click here.
Photo by MissLPS
Once again, a mother learns the hard way that it’s better to take your kids inside the store than leave them out in the car.
Jennifer Macy of Indianapolis went shopping this week in a drug store while her three young children were left in the family van — with the keys in the ignition and the engine running, police said. So her 3-year-old boy jumped in the driver’s seat.
Somehow, the van was shifted into reversed and hit another car in the parking lot, a prosecutor said. A 7-year-old sibling jumped out of the van and ran inside. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, WTHR TV News reported. Macy was charged with child neglect and could face up to three years in jail. Meanwhile, a judge has ordered her not to have contact with her kids.
Hernandez
A Florida mom not only endorsed her son’s sexual relations with a teacher, but allowed them to go to Disney World for a weekend getaway. That’s according to accusations from Miami police.
Her 15-year-old son allegedly had an affair with a sixth grade teacher at his religious school, the Miami Herald reported. Shortly after the couple got back from Disney World on Saturday, Maria Guzman Hernandez, 32, was arrested. She was charged with sexual battery on a child over whom she had custodial authority. The boy has been suspended from Our Lady of Charity school.
The boy’s mother, 44, is disputing just exactly what she knew about the affair. On Wednesday, a judge ordered that mother and son undergo psychological testing and counseling. He also warned that the relationship between the boy and his teacher had to end and the mom mustn’t encourage it.