A mother and father are facing aggravated manslaughter charges after Florida authorities said their 18-month-old daughter died after being left in a hot car overnight after a Fourth of July party.
Joel and Jazmine Rondon, both 33, were charged after the toddler was left strapped in her car seat outside their home in Lakeland, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.
The couple and their three children who are all under age 9 had gone to a Fourth of July party Tuesday where the parents both smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Judd said.
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They returned home around 3 a.m. on July 5 and started unloading food and items from their car.
Jazmine told Joel to bring the female toddler inside while she brought the two other children in, but as the car was being unloaded and he saw the car doors closed, he assumed his wife had taken the 18-month-old out of the car, Judd said.
Neither parent asked each other if they'd brought the toddler inside before they both went to sleep, Judd said.
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Joel Rondon woke up around 10 a.m. to get ready for work and around 11 a.m., he asked one of his kids to "check on the baby," but the child said the baby wasn't in her bedroom, Judd said.
He then went outside and looked in the car, which was parked in the driveway in the full sun, Judd said.
"He goes to the car and there is the baby still strapped in the child carrier in the car with a heat index 105 degrees on that day," Judd told reporters at a news conference Thursday.
The father brought the toddler still strapped in her car seat into the house in a panic, and then he and Jazmine drove the child to Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center.
Despite all efforts and cooling her body down, she could not be revived and was declared deceased. At 2:42 p.m. her internal body temperature was over 104 degrees, the sheriff's office said.
Joel and Jazmine later submitted to drug screens and Joel tested positive for meth, marijuana, and alcohol, while Jazmine tested positive for marijuana and alcohol, the sheriff's office said.
An autopsy determined that the toddler’s cause of death was hyperthermia due to being left in a car, and the manner of death as homicide. Joel and Jazmine were taken into custody on Thursday and booked into the Polk County Jail.
At his news conference, Judd called it "a torturous death" for the toddler and put the blame squarely on the parents.
"This rips your heart out," Judd said. "This is not an accident, this is pure negligence and I suggest to you the core of the negligence is the use of drugs."
