LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — A Lawrenceville mother is facing murder and child cruelty charges after police found a 1-year-old dead inside a locked car.
Lawrenceville Police say officers responded to Northside Hospital, where they found the child inside a locked vehicle parked outside the hospital where 29-year-old Deja Coleman worked.
Officers broke into the car, but the child was already dead.
Police say Coleman told investigators she forgot the child was in the vehicle.
“She forgot. She had taken her other two children to daycare, her normal routine is to take the older kids into daycare, come back and retrieve the baby out of the car seat,” Lawrenceville Police spokesperson Dena Pauly said.
Pauly says the temperature inside the vehicle was measured at 117 degrees about an hour after the child was removed.
“She was devastated,” Pauly said.