DeKalb
cops: Baby died in hot car while mom got her hair done
DeKalb County police say a 25-year-old
mother was getting her hair done for six hours as her
baby slowly died in a hot car.
Dijanelle Fowler
is charged with felony murder, child cruelty and
concealing the June 15 death of Skylar Fowler, 1,
according to warrants obtained by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. The child was found dead in an
Emory University Hospital parking deck when the mother
went there and dialed 911.
Police said they don’t
believe Fowler intended to harm the child.
The
warrants suggest the case against Fowler was partly
built by security camera footage.
Fowler had a
hair appointment in the Northlake Tower Festival
Shopping Center in the Tucker area at 10 a.m. Footage
shows her enter at 10:06 a.m. and later emerge at 4
p.m., the warrants say.
Witnesses confirmed she
never left the salon.
In the parking lot, Fowler
couldn’t start the car and got a man at the hair
dresser’s to assist.
The good Samaritan didn’t
see the baby because, police believe, Fowler covered her
up with clothes that were in the car or hid her in some
other way.
“Between 4 and 4:54 (p.m.) she texted
the child’s godfather that she was going to go to an
urgent care for headaches,” a detective wrote. “(Fowler)
also Googled about signs of seizures.”
She
arrived at Emory at 4:54 p.m., soon dialing 911.
Police allege Fowler didn’t mention the child and
instead said that she herself was “having a seizure of
some kind.”
When officers arrived, Skylar was
unresponsive in the back seat.
The medical
examiner’s office believes she had been dead for “some
period of time,” the detective wrote.
The
obituary listed her as a Charleston, South Carolina,
resident.
Skylar leaves “precious memories” to
her parents, Louis R. Williams, II, and Fowler, it said.
The mother, who was treated and released from
the hospital after her daughter’s death, was arrested
Monday night. She has no bond.
The case is sure
to bring to mind that of Cooper Harris, who died on June
18, 2014, nearly three years to the day from Skylar, in
a hot car in Cobb County. Father Justin Ross Harris was
convicted of murder after a sensational trial detailing
his sordid sexual exploits and what prosecutors called
his desire for a child-free life.
In that case,
the jury found malice. In Fowler’s police have only
charged her with felony murder, which is unlike malice
murder in that it doesn’t require malice.