Joel and Jazmine Rondon have been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child. Their daughter died after being left in a hot car overnight following a Fourth of July party in Florida. Photo / Polk County Sheriff's Office
Joel and Jazmine Rondon have been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child. Their daughter died after being left in a hot car overnight following a Fourth of July party in Florida. Photo / Polk County Sheriff's Office
A toddler died after her parents left her in a hot car overnight following a Fourth of July party in Florida, authorities said.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said Lakeland couple Joel and Jazmine Rondon had been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child.
Authorities said the Rondons accidentally leftthe 18-month-old girl in her car seat while they removed their two other children and unloaded their vehicle after arriving home from the Independence Day celebration. Joel Rondon discovered his toddler unresponsive in the car the following morning. She was declared dead in hospital.
The couple were arrested on Thursday and submitted to drug tests, the sheriff’s office said. Joel Rondon tested positive for methamphetamines, marijuana and alcohol. His wife was positive for marijuana and alcohol.
Polk County Sheriff’s detectives have charged husband and wife Joel and Jazmine Rondon, both 33 years old, of Winchester Estates Circle in Lakeland, with aggravated manslaughter of a child, a first degree felony, after the couple left an 18-month-old toddler in a car overnight when they returned home from partying, and the child died while strapped into her car seat in the extreme heat the next day.
Click here to read the news release: https://tinyurl.com/2ak4xpdw
An autopsy ruled the toddler’s cause of death as hyperthermia. It was not immediately clear whether the Rondons, both 33, had hired a lawyer who could comment on the allegations.
