DISCOURAGING new details have emerged about the death of a five-year-old boy who was left in a stifling car for hours.
Police say little Trace Means was pronounced dead after his mother left him in a car in the Texas heat for two to three hours on Monday.
4
4
4
4
In the family photos, father Steve, 48, is mourning the tragic death of his son, but is not calling for the mother to face charges as the Harris County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating.
“He’s crying, he’s out of his mind, but the last thing he wants is for Amanda to be criminally punished,” said the father’s attorney, Gary Block.
“She’s already going through enough.”
Amanda, 36, and Steve were getting a divorce, and Steve was on a plane to Florida for a business trip at the time of Trace’s death. daily mail informed.
Amanda reportedly thought Trace had unbuttoned as she went inside to prepare for her eight-year-old daughter’s birthday party.
The boy knew how to unbuckle, but the family was using a borrowed Porsche, which Harris County Texas Police believe the boy may not have known how to get out.
The mother reportedly did not realize where he was until she called his name two or three hours after arriving home.
Detectives believe that Amanda simply forgot about the girl and she has not been charged with any charges in the ongoing investigation.
“He knows that she is his mother no matter what happened, and nothing was done on purpose,” Block said on Steve’s behalf.
“All she wants to do right now is make sure her daughter is okay and everyone can start to heal.”
The family called 911 around 2 pm Monday and the young man was pronounced dead at the scene.
The cause of death has not been determined, but police say it was likely heat stroke as temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in Austin.
Steve filed for divorce in January after a decade of marriage, and the two were separated at the time of the tragic incident.
However, Block said that the nature of their divorce was not scandalous and that the two fell out of love.
“There have never been any allegations that Amanda was an unfit mother or that there was any abuse, nothing like that at all,” Block told the Mail.
Steve had just landed in Florida for a business trip when he received the news of his son’s death.
“At first, he thought she was joking or being sarcastic,” Block said.
“It took me a moment to realize it was real.”
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrationmore than 900 children have died of heat stroke since 1998, because they were trapped in a car.
Twenty-one children died of vehicle heat stroke last year.
This comes as record heat could hit the southern and central United States this week, with temperatures expected to exceed 100 degrees and 10 to 25 degrees above average, according to weather.com.
A child’s body temperature, which rises three to five times faster than that of adults, can become deadly if it reaches 107 degrees.
Heat stroke can start at 104 degrees.
Reference-www.thesun.co.uk