Humble parents
charged in death of toddler left overnight in car
A
Humble couple have been charged in the September heat death of their
2-year-old daughter, who was left in the backseat of a car after a party.
The parents, Olga Esquivel and Angel Esquivel-Blanco, both 25, are
charged with child abandonment in the Sept. 16 incident.
Their
daughter, Alicia Esquivel, died of heat exposure after being left for hours
in the backseat of a car. Olga Esquivel is also charged with tampering with
a corpse.
“Parents have a duty to protect their children,” Harris
County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a news release. “And these parents
will forever live with their child’s horrible death and suffer the
consequences of their actions.”
The mother allegedly changed her
story when speaking to police, according to court records.
She first
told investigators that the family went to a party on Sept. 15, and the
whole family fell asleep together inside their home after she helped her
intoxicated husband inside, records show.
Olga Esquivel said she woke
up around noon and that her daughter was hot to the touch. After about an
hour, she and her husband said, they called 911 because they couldn’t find
one cell phone and another one was charging.
Authorities obtained
photos and a video from the couple’s cell phones, taken as early as 10:40
a.m. that Saturday. Two photos and a video, apparently taken by the child,
were recovered.
The photos showed the inside of the car and the girl
could be heard speaking in discomfort in the video, investigators said. The
video also showed a pair of scissors lodged in the area between the
passenger seat and the door.
Police also found one of Alicia’s
sandals in the driveway.
When she was interviewed again, Olga
Esquivel said that she did leave her daughter in the car overnight. After
helping her husband inside the night before, they both fell asleep, she
said.
It wasn’t until noon the next day when she woke up and realized
their toddler was still in the car, she said.
Olga Esquivel said she
found her daughter unresponsive in the front passenger seat, because she
wasn't in a car seat the night before. She splashed water on her daughter
and performed CPR to try to save her before calling police around 2:55 p.m.
Angel Esquivel-Blanco still claimed that he didn’t know his wife left
Alicia in the car.
The charges are all second-degree felonies which
carry up to 20 years in prison, according to the District Attorney's office.