Relevant to the situation are notes that the parents had the State remove previous children from these two due to neglect.
They left her in the car and lied about the circumstances surrounding the death.
What on earth did people do in the past when cars didn’t have a/c ?
I’m calling this one an accident with reservations. For instance, how long did they drive without checking the child?
It is up to the parents to provide a safe environment for their child. They didn't, and I don't believe that was an accident.
This story does not smell right.
Never heard this happening before.
To include the 1960s and 1970s when NO ONE had a/c in the car...
To include ALOT of hot summers.
You know, I can never remember these incidences happening over 20 years ago. Either:
a) The sun’s rays are much hotter now (nah)
b) Car interior absorb radiation so much more readily (nah)
c) The incidences just weren’t publicized years ago like they are now (nah... babies dying is newsworthy in any age)
4) People are more stupid, more distracted, and lazier about tending to their charges (maybe)
Negligent homicide is when you are NEGLIGENT and someone dies. They should be charged as such. The baby is dead because they are stupid and negligent. I-personally- would lie to see people who do this sterilized so they can’t do it again.
Then I heard someone on tv say that you should put ‘something important to you that you won’t forget’ in the back seat with the baby, so you won’t forget your child! So a cellphone is important enough to not leave in the car, but a baby isn’t? There’s the problem right there-mindless parents and screwed up priorities.
Until my mid-teens, we didn’t even have a car with AC. Wasn’t a crime back then, shouldn’t be one now.
Based on this previous history, would bet they stopped and left the baby in the car while they did “x”, and baby died, then made up this story of baby died while car was moving.
There was no air conditioning when I was growing up and people didn't feel the heat like they do now. These days, our bodies are recalibrated to being cooler, and we can't deal with the heat.
Act of God. At 100 degrees F, having the windows rolled down probably wouldn’t have helped anything.
On the other hand, for a species to survive, survival of the fittest has to be in place. Someone on this thread mentioned that the law demands an infant be in a child safety seat in back. Would the child have been alive in her mother's lap? Probably.
These aren't crimes. There's a real danger here of all of these situations where the results of stupidity are defined as criminal acts. This keeps up, and a majority of the population will be in jail.
Small children, especially infants, dehydrate much faster than adults. The parents should have been checking on the baby and feeding her and giving her water often enough so this couldn't happen. It's hard for me to believe the baby wasn't crying, too. Yes, they sometimes cry because they are cranky, but most of the time in my experience they need something, like food, diaper, etc.
Ohio Ping
The Columbus Dispatch reports that husband and wife Angela Randolph, 26, and Christopher Randolph, 28, now face charges of child neglect after their 23-day-old daughter died in the back of a car running without air conditioning on a hot day.
The newspaper says the parents were driving in a car packed with their belongings, no working A/C and only one window rolled down from Ohio to Oklahoma last week.
That is a rather important note.
People can be rather dim but when they have a history of neglect then I lean toward charging the parents. However I would have to know what the charges of neglect were, they didn't give little Billy a midnight snack or they regularly didn't feed him.
As an aside when I was three weeks old my parents and grandparents took me across the US in a car with no AC in the middle of summer. Grandpa would fill up a water bottle with tap water and tucked it in behind me. The water kept me cooler and happy.
Maybe there’s something funny about the parents’ story.
But also 23 days old - we’re not talking about a 5 year old here. We’re talking about a 23 day old infant. So the usual “Ah - we did that back in the day” arguments don’t apply. Chances are you didn’t do that at 23 days of age and if you did you sure as heck don’t remember doing it.
Brand new babies really aren’t to be toted around like luggage - need to wait a little while to do that :)
The only way to get AC until I was a teenager was at the movies.
Another poor couple left their child in a small bedroom with a electric space heater in the winter. The baby died and they were charged.
I have never heard of a baby being left in a car in the winter and dieing from hypothermia.