Woman Whose Kids Died in Hot Car After She Left Them to Teach a ‘lesson' Gets 20 Years

A Parker County woman whose two children died in a hot car last year has been found guilty of leaving the 2-year-old girl and 1-year-old boy in the vehicle.Cynthia Marie Randolph, 25, was found guilty Monday of two counts of injury to a child. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison on each count, with the terms to run concurrently.Authorities were called to Randolph's home in Weatherford the afternoon of May 26 when she reported finding 2-year-old Juliet Ramirez and 1-year-old Cavanaugh Ramirez unresponsive in a vehicle.The children were pronounced dead about half an hour after authorities arrived. The Tarrant County medical examiner's officer determined that they died from exogenous hyperthermia — elevated body temperatures from an external source.The temperature at that time was 96 degrees.Randolph originally told investigators that she was folding laundry in the home and realized that the children "took off." She said she eventually found them locked inside a car, which she said they must've gotten into on their own, and broke a window in an attempt to save them.But she later changed her story, saying that she left the children in the car to teach them a "lesson" after she found them playing in the vehicle and her daughter refused to get out.She told authorities that she shut the door, assuming that the girl "could get herself and her brother out of the car when ready." Afterward, she went inside, smoked marijuana and napped for two or three hours.More than 700 children have died in hot cars in the United States since 1998, according to noheatstroke.org. Seven such deaths were reported in Texas in 2017, including 3-year-old Keandre Goodman and 1-year-old Kingston Jackson.  Continue reading...

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