BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – Baker County babysitter Rhonda Jewell, who was found guilty last month in the death of 10-month-old Ariya Paige, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.
Jewell, 46, testified in her own defense during her trial on charges of third-degree murder, child neglect and negligent manslaughter.
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Jewell admitted during her testimony that when the baby‘s mother, Brooke Paige, came to pick her up, she realized she’d left Ariya in the SUV.
RELATED: The joyful life and tragic death of Baby Ariya
“That‘s when I realized I didn’t get that baby out of the car,” Jewell said through tears on the stand. “I forgot the baby in the car...and I ran to the car and I opened up the door and she was still there. Ariya was still in the backseat.”
Investigators said Paige was left unattended in the SUV for five hours on a hot day in July 2023 when the temperature reached over 100 degrees.
Jewell was found not guilty of negligent manslaughter but convicted by the jury on the other two counts. She faces up to 15 years in prison on the third-degree murder charge alone.
Ariya’s parents said her death took a toll on their family but they wanted to push for justice and breathed a sigh of relief after the verdict last month.
“From the beginning. I always felt like it was cut and dry, and I felt it didn‘t need to go to a trial. It was plain and simple from the beginning,” Justice Paige, Ariya’s father, told News4JAX.
Jewell told the court she started watching children as a babysitter when she was 17 years old but took a break after she had children of her own.
She said she didn’t start babysitting again until 2017 and that she cared for the children she babysat as if they were her own.
“I loved her like she was my own,” Jewell said of her relationship with Ariya.
She said she saw Ariya’s grandmother, Monique Carter, as her best friend and spoke of her relationship with Ariya‘s mother, Brooke.
“I was there for baby showers, weddings. I gravitated to her, just like any baby,” Jewell said.
A detective who arrived at the hospital where Ariya was taken talked about the child’s condition.
RELATED | ‘Justice for Ariya’: Parents of 10-month-old who died in hot car remember ‘daddy’s girl’
He said she was kept in a climate-controlled environment but despite efforts to cool her body down, Ariya’s internal and external temperature was above 100 degrees.
He said when he interviewed Jewell, she told him she forgot to take Ariya out of the SUV because she was distracted by thoughts regarding a family event.
A medical examiner said the child died from hyperthermia, and a firefighter who testified said the temperature in the SUV was 133 degrees.
In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill named for Ariya declaring April “Hot Car Death Prevention Month.”