A 24-year-old Texan mother is facing charges over the death of her two children after she reportedly locked them inside a hot car with outside temperatures of 35.5C.
After changing her story multiple times, it’s now understood that Cynthia Marie Randolph admitted to locking daughter Juliet, two, and her 16-month-old brother Cavanaugh inside her vehicle to “teach them a lesson”.
The County Sheriff’s office reveals that “throughout multiple interviews, Ms Randolph created several variations of the events which led to the death of her children”.
In initial statements, she allegedly recounted that her son and daughter had somehow locked themselves in the Honda Crosstour, and said they could have only been inside for “no more than an hour”.
However, in multiple interviews since, her story has been unravelled. Ms Randolph allegedly locked the vehicle doors with her son and daughter inside after they refused to exit.
“The defendant went inside the house, smoked marijuana and took a nap. The defendant said she was asleep for two or three hours,” the Washington Post reports.
It can take just 15 minutes in an overheated car for a child to suffer life-threatening kidney or brain injuries. When the body reaches 40 degrees, organs can shut down and at 41.6 degrees a person can die.
When the outside temperature is 26-37 degrees, a car parked in direct sunlight can quickly climb to 54-77 degrees, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Upon waking up, the mother allegedly found her kids unresponsive where she’d left them inside the overheated car. They were pronounced dead on the scene.
Ms Randolph was charged on Friday with two first-degree felony counts of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury.
The news comes just weeks after a 19-year-old Texan woman allegedly left her two daughters to die inside her hot car while she spent the night partying at a friend’s house.
