A 19-year-old Ohio father has been charged with murder after he reportedly confessed to intentionally leaving his toddler child in a hot car for about five hours, according to police.
Authorities were notified on Sept. 1 at approximately 2 p.m. that Landon Parrott brought his unresponsive 1-year-old son to the emergency sector of the Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital, New Philadelphia police chief Michael Goodwin said in a press release on Facebook.
Following an initial investigation, detectives found that Parrott provided inconsistent information about what had happened to his son, who has been identified as Kyler in a GoFundMe fundraiser to help with the baby boy’s funeral costs.
At first, Parrott tried to pass off Kyler’s death as an accident, but he later confessed in an interview to leaving the child in the car unattended for hours after police confronted him with surveillance footage, New Philadelphia detective captain Ty Norris told Fox affiliate WJW.
The footage revealed that Parrott left his residence with Kyler at 8:30 a.m. and was not seen returning again until 1:50 p.m., the network reported. He allegedly told investigators he was aware of the dangers of leaving children in hot cars, but he left the child in the car anyway because he “didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“The child passed away after being left in the car unattended for approximately 5 hours, with an outside temperature of 87 degrees,” Goodwin wrote in the press release.
“During the interview, it appears that this was not a matter of forgetting the child but was a deliberate act so the child would not be a disturbance while in the house,” he added.
Parrott is currently being held at Tuscarawas County Jail on a $250,000 bond, police said. He is facing charges that include murder, involuntary manslaughter, and two counts of endangering children.
Norris told WJW that investigators estimate the interior of the car was about 130 degrees and Kyler “was in there strapped into a car seat with no fluids, no air conditioning nothing.”
The child’s mother, Vanessa Parrot, was at work when the incident took place, he told the network.
“It’s heartbreaking to see this unfold before your eyes,” Norris said. “This is about this poor child and this poor mother who was just trying to work and pay bills and finding justice for both of them.”
A relative of Vanessa described Kyler as “the sweetest little boy ever” on the GoFundMe page.
The child’s paternal grandparents wrote in a joint statement on Facebook that “justice will be served,” saying Kyler was “an active baby” who was “always so curious.”
“Kyler was an unexpected surprise who immediately changed our world in the best way, from the very beginning. We saw his mother, Vanessa Parrott’s belly grow while he was getting ready to make his grand appearance,” the toddler’s grandparents wrote in the post.
Since 1998, 929 children have died due to pediatric vehicular heatstroke (PVH) in the United States, according to Noheatstroke.org. This year, the number of U.S. PVHs stands at 22 child deaths. In more than half of these cases, the child was forgotten by their caregivers.