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A former Mississippi Gulf Coast police officer has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of her 3-year-old daughter whom she left unsupervised in her hot patrol car, The Washington Post reports.
Cassie Barker’s daughter died on September 30, 2016, when she was left alone, strapped in her carseat in her mother’s patrol car. Barker was gone for more than 4 hours, having fallen asleep in the house of her supervisor, after they had sex.
Barker was initially charged with second-degree murder, but she accepted a lesser charge in exchange for pleading guilty. She will be sentenced on April 1.
According to court documents obtained by the Post, Barker drove with her daughter to her supervisor’s home. She turned the AC on and went inside, and ended up sleeping with her boss. Then, she fell asleep.
Though she’d left the AC on in the car, it was not blowing cold air. By the time she remembered she had left her child outside in the car, the girl was unresponsive. Doctors told the court that when she arrived at the hospital, her body had reached the temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.6 degrees Celsius).
Barker herself was hospitalized briefly after the child’s death. She was diagnosed with PTSD from childhood trauma and the recent tragedy, but was deemed fit to stand trial.
“I don’t know what I could ever do to you that could be worse than what you’ve already experienced,” Harrison County Circuit Judge Larry Bourgeois told Barker in court. “You will forever be entombed in a prison of your own mind.”
Prosecutors are recommending a 20-year prison sentence.
As a reminder, vehicular hypertermia (or hot car death) remains the number one cause of vehicular death in under-14 children, with an average of 37 children dying annually in the U.S. alone. Leaving a child unsupervised in a locked car in hot weather (regardless if it’s sunny or not) for only a few minutes can have fatal consequences, with the body of the car acting like an oven.
Barker was initially charged with second-degree murder, but she accepted a lesser charge in exchange for pleading guilty. She will be sentenced on April 1.
According to court documents obtained by the Post, Barker drove with her daughter to her supervisor’s home. She turned the AC on and went inside, and ended up sleeping with her boss. Then, she fell asleep.
Though she’d left the AC on in the car, it was not blowing cold air. By the time she remembered she had left her child outside in the car, the girl was unresponsive. Doctors told the court that when she arrived at the hospital, her body had reached the temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.6 degrees Celsius).
Barker herself was hospitalized briefly after the child’s death. She was diagnosed with PTSD from childhood trauma and the recent tragedy, but was deemed fit to stand trial.
“I don’t know what I could ever do to you that could be worse than what you’ve already experienced,” Harrison County Circuit Judge Larry Bourgeois told Barker in court. “You will forever be entombed in a prison of your own mind.”
Prosecutors are recommending a 20-year prison sentence.
As a reminder, vehicular hypertermia (or hot car death) remains the number one cause of vehicular death in under-14 children, with an average of 37 children dying annually in the U.S. alone. Leaving a child unsupervised in a locked car in hot weather (regardless if it’s sunny or not) for only a few minutes can have fatal consequences, with the body of the car acting like an oven.
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