A woman from Texas informed investigators that she left her 2-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son in a hot automobile where they passed away last month to teach the girl a lesson and that they didn’t lock themselves in, as she reported at first, according to sheriff’s authorities.
Cynthia Marie Randolph, 24, was being held Saturday on 2 counts of triggering severe physical injury to a child. It was unclear if she had an attorney– online prison records didn’t list one for her– and she doesn’t have a listed contact number.
As per the criminal complaint, Randolph at first told investigators she was inside her rural house west of Fort Worth folding laundry and viewing TV on May 26 while the kids were playing on the confined back porch. She said when she observed they were not there, she went searching for them and found them about a half-hour later locked in the car. The children were not responding and Randolph said she broke a window to get entry. Temperature levels that day reached into the mid-90s.
At the time Randolph stated the kids were exposed to the extreme temperature levels in the car for “no greater than an hour.” But her account of that day altered over the course of numerous interviews with investigators until she acknowledged on Friday that she left them in the vehicle deliberately, the Parker County Sheriff’s Office stated in a news release. She informed investigators that she discovered the kids playing in the automobile when the 2-year-old refused to get out, she shut the door to teach her a lesson, believing her daughter could get herself and her sibling out of the vehicle when ready.
Randolph said she returned into your home, smoked marijuana and rested for 2 or 3 hours, the complaint notes. It says that when she got up and went to examine the children, they were not responding, and that she broke the car window to support her initial claim that the kids had locked themselves in the car.
The kids were pronounced dead about a half-hour after officials were informed.
Authorities refused to talk about the case Saturday.
