Dad's Cell Phone Seized as Discrepancies Are Found in Case of 2-Year-Old's Hot Car Death
There is an important update to this story.
A cell phone belonging to the father of a deceased 2-year-old girl has been seized as part of a search warrant following shortly after the toddler’s death.
The toddler died in the Marana suburb of Tucson, Arizona, on Tuesday, after being left in a car amid triple-digit temperatures.
New findings in the case have unveiled apparent discrepancies in the dad’s original story.
Initially the father said he left the toddler in the car with the engine running because she was asleep, but returned less than 60 minutes later to find the vehicle off and the young girl unresponsive.
A 911 call was placed and the toddler was rushed to a hospital, where she was declared dead.
A search warrant reviewed by KOLD-TV reveals evidence was discovered that runs contrary to the father’s original story.
The dad’s original timeline put him home between 2 and 2:45 p.m., after which he says he checked on her once and found the engine still running.
A neighbor’s surveillance camera caught the car, a 2023 Acura MDX, actually returning home at 12:53 p.m.. This suggests a nearly two-hour discrepancy in the given story.
Additionally, the camera did not capture the father leaving the home after returning.
The girl’s mother says she returned home at 4:08 p.m., a timeline corroborated by the surveillance video, before discovering her daughter missing from the home. A quick search led to the heartbreaking discovery in the car.
A 911 call was made at 4:15 p.m. and first responders arrived some seven minutes later.
The girl was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead at 4:58 p.m..
The father’s phone was also seized as part of the Marana Police Department’s search warrant. Neighbors knew something was amiss as authorities continued to arrive at the growing scene.
“There kept being more and more official presence in the area,” one neighbor told KOLD, “and that’s when we knew things were definitely not a run-of-the-mill incident.”
Authorities have not filed any charges in the death.
Temperatures in the area reached up to 110 degrees in the days surrounding the death, but can be fatal even in double-digit temperature conditions. The danger does not just threaten children, either.
On June 13, former “Alf” child star Benji Gregory, aged 46, died in his car at an Arizona bank parking lot. It’s believed he fell asleep in the car and succumbed to vehicular heatstroke. Gregory’s service dog was also found dead in the car.
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