After her 8-year-old daughter died because she was “left in a vehicle in hot weather conditions,” a woman has been charged.
After getting a call on June 26 at 6:30 p.m. local time in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a news release that they found the child in critical condition when they got there. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
The scene was searched, and other police departments arrived. The Homicide Unit of the department’s investigation found that “the victim was left in a vehicle in hot weather and had a medical emergency.”
At this point, the girl’s mother, Ashlee Stallings, 36, has been charged with manslaughter by accident and child abuse by willful act causing major injury. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says she was sent to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
“The investigation into this case is active and ongoing,” the department said, asking anyone who knows anything to get in touch. “As additional information develops, it will be released by the CMPD’s Public Affairs Office.”
The website for the jail says that Stallings was booked on June 27, the day after her daughter was declared dead at the hospital.
ABC News says that Charlotte had temperatures in the high 90s on the day of the incident. A police report that the outlet got from the mother says that she told them she left the girl in the car with the air on while she was at work. She said she “believed the victim turned the car off because she was cold.”
According to the affidavit, the news source also said that Stallings went back to the car an hour and a half after the last text message from the child and found her lying on the backseat floor, not responding and foaming at the mouth.
Then, she allegedly used a hammer to break the car window and tried to drive to the hospital before stopping at a store to get help. A police report told ABC News that the woman “admitted she knew it was 94 degrees outside and that she should not have left the victim inside the car alone.”
According to an affidavit obtained by ABC News, hospital workers told police that the girl had a brain herniation because she was too hot.
ABC News says that Stallings will be in court next on July 16 and is being held on a $250,000 bond. It is not immediately clear if she has a lawyer who can speak for her.
Local store What WSOC said was that the mother worked at an Amazon center. The company told the cops that it was “working closely” with them on the case.
As reported by ABC News, Amazon said, “This is a very sad event.” “We’re here to help our employees through this tough time, and we’ve made counseling resources easy for many to find.”
Kids and Car Safety, a nonprofit, says this is the fifth confirmed death from a hot car this year and the first in North Carolina since 2024. The other four kids died in Florida, East Virginia, California, and West Virginia. They were between 2 months and 6 years old.
Source: PEOPLE
