A Virginia woman who was babysitting an 11-month-old left the infant and a dog in the car as temperatures hit “the upper 80s” before both were found dead hours later, the local sheriff told Newsweek.
Kristen Danielle Graham, 40, of Seaford, Virginia, was taken into custody on Tuesday, charged with felony child neglect and misdemeanor animal cruelty, according to records from the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail, where she’s being held. York-Poquoson Sheriff Ron Montgomery told Newsweek in a phone interview on Wednesday that officials are waiting for the baby’s autopsy results to determine if charges will be upgraded to homicide.
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Jail records did not list an attorney who could speak on Graham’s behalf as of Wednesday night.
Deputies were called to the Bon Secours Mary Immaculate Hospital in Newport News around 4 p.m. Tuesday after an 80-year-old man entering the emergency room and said he had the body of a baby girl, identified as Myrical Wicker, in his vehicle. Hospital staff went outside and found the baby in the rear hatch of the vehicle inside a “black plastic trash bag,” Montgomery said during a Wednesday press conference.
The York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation and arrested Graham a few hours later, Montgomery said.
The man who brought Wicker’s body to the hospital is not facing charges, the sheriff said.
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Montgomery told Newsweek that Graham would babysit Wicker often, caring for the “friend of a friend’s” baby. The infant’s mother is 17 years old.
“She took care of the child on a fairly regular basis,” he said. ” Sometimes she would have the child for as much as a week at a time.”
Graham left Wicker and the small dog, who belonged to Graham, in the vehicle with the windows up from roughly 8:30 a.m. when she went inside her home in Seaford and went to sleep. She told investigators that when she was awoken by a phone call around 2:30 p.m., she went to check on the baby and found the girl and dog deceased, Montgomery said.
The sheriff added that Graham has given conflicting accounts of why the child and dog were left in the vehicle.
“We’re still investigating how the child was left in there, but she clearly left with the child and dog,” he said. “She knew because she put them both in the car. And then when she came home, she went into the house and left them both in there. So, we’re still investigating as to how that occurred.”
Investigators are also working to determine exactly how hot the inside of the vehicle could have gotten on Tuesday before Wicker and the dog were discovered, Montgomery said.
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“It was in the upper 80s here yesterday,” the sheriff told Newsweek. “We’re actually investigating that now and talking to experts and trying to get some expert opinions on what the potential temperature could have been in that car as the temperature rose during the day.”
The sheriff said the case was a tough one for his department.
“Anytime you investigate the death of a child it’s devastating to the investigators and the law enforcement people who have to be involved with that,” Montgomery said. “We have children ourselves and I can tell you that we all go home and hug our kids and grandkids a little tighter after something like this happens.”
He urges people to be more cautious when traveling with kids and pets.
“Clearly, this was an awful scenario,” Montgomery told Newsweek. “We’ve read stories like this across the country where children are left in cars on hot days. People have to be aware of when they’re traveling with small children, whether they get distracted or whatever the issue is, and we don’t know what it is in this case, but you can’t leave children and in this case, a small dog as well, in the car.”
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Source: https://arcy.info
Category: Dog Care
