BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – A Baker County family is heartbroken after police said their babysitter left their 10-month-old girl in a hot SUV for five hours which led to her death.
Rhonda Jewell, 46, is now charged with negligent manslaughter.
News4JAX spoke with several of the infant’s relatives who were too upset and shocked about what happened to comment on camera. They said the child had phenomenal parents that did everything right with their baby. They also said the baby’s death was the result of carelessness and neglect by a babysitter.
In Macclenny, news of the infant’s death left residents shocked and upset, especially after learning the person accused of leaving the child was her babysitter.
“It just makes me very angry,” Isabella Holloway said.
“It makes you second-think who you are leaving your kids with,” Ashley Demers said.
“It’s saddening, what the other parents are going through. The loss of an infant. I couldn’t imagine,” Brittany Lotz said.
“It really crushes me because I went through seven years of fertility to have a baby. And there are children out there that this happens to. It’s really sad,” Misty Beebe said.
According to investigators, Jewell said she picked the infant up from the child’s home and drove to a house on Estates Street where she was scheduled to babysit the homeowner’s four children. She said when she arrived, the infant was still asleep, so she went inside to interact with the four children that were waiting for her. But she said while she was inside, she completely forgot that she had left the infant inside her SUV.
“Even if you’re interacting with other children, isn’t it going to run through your head like, I’m missing a kid? I just picked this kid up, where is he or she at?” Lotz said.
Investigators say five hours later, the infant’s mother arrived at the home to pick up her child when she noticed her baby daughter was still inside the SUV. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. Jewell was then arrested.
Jewell bonded out of jail and a group of people were seen gathering outside her home. News4JAX wanted to try and talk to her to get her side of the story, but someone put a vehicle in the driveway to block it.
A grey SUV in the driveway matches the description of the SUV the child was left in. A woman who saw paramedics take the child said the vehicle was surrounded with crime scene tape as detectives conducted their investigation.
According to medical staff, the child’s internal body temperature at the time of death was at least 110 degrees and the temperature outside was in the mid-90s.