Young boys die in sweltering SUV
Brothers, ages 3 and 5, were in the car for five hours
Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Posted: 8:10 AM EDT (1210 GMT)

Los Angeles detectives examine the scene where the boys died Tuesday.


Vehicles are not baby sitters. And vehicles, when they are not properly ventilated, are death traps.
-- Sheriff Lee Baca


LANCASTER, California (AP) -- The foster mother of two young boys who died after being left five hours in a sweltering sport utility vehicle was arrested for investigation of child endangerment.

Leslie Sue Smoot, 48, was booked late Tuesday night and held on $100,000 bail. No court date was scheduled.

Sheriff Lee Baca said earlier Tuesday that those responsible for leaving the children in the car would be charged with child endangerment and possibly manslaughter.

"Vehicles are not playpens," he said. "Vehicles are not baby sitters. And vehicles, when they are not properly ventilated, are death traps."

Smoot told authorities she left the boys, ages 3 and 5, in the car around 9 a.m. outside A Child's Place Daycare, which she ran.

"She indicated she thought someone else was going to get the children out of the car, possibly her husband," Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Al Grotefend said. "There was some miscommunication."

Smoot told investigators she discovered the boys in their car seats when she returned in the afternoon and pulled them from the vehicle.

The 5-year-old was dead. His brother, who was severely dehydrated, died a short time later at a hospital, sheriff's Sgt. Paul Patterson said.

Afternoon temperatures hovered around 100 degrees in the high desert town about 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Officials from the Department of Children and Family Services said they will investigate.

A woman who answered the phone at A Child's Place Daycare declined to comment. Friends and parents gathered Tuesday at the 24-hour day care center.

Naeemah Edwards, whose daughter attended the center, told KABC-TV she was shocked.

"They come in with my daughter, and they play together," she said, adding that she would not let her child to return to the center.



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How the hell do you run a child day care and leave your children in the car outside?

u know.. i just dont understand.. how can u forget about ur own children for tht long of a period....people are just really STUPID.....

dais wah i saying.. But she ent goh check to see if her husband really got them? FIVE HOURS!!!

Dey need to put her in a SUV

__________________

The saint and the sinner are just exchanging notes. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

The matador wins by avoiding the bull not colliding with him!

Last year my mom went to court to tell against this woman who left her baby in the car while she was shopping. It's amazing...when you come to your car in the summer(or almost year-round here), you know it's damn hot & you roll your windows down or turn on the ac. Close your window for 2 minutes w/ no a/c & you see how hot it gets inside. How the f**k you leave kids in there for so long? Death penalty:

Some of the wrong people are having children. :

__________________

"Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe." - Oprah Winfrey

"If you keep believing in yourself and seek enthusiasm inside your soul, things will get simpler, more spontaneous." ~Paulo Coelho

"I find your lack of faith disturbing" - Darth Vader

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit
the floor each morning the devil says:
"Oh Crap, She's up!"

u are so right......

Hearing stories as such, really pains my heart.

Wha de hell! Dis stupidness pisses me off as well, I swear some ppl were jus not meant to be parents..the poor children didn't even have a chance at life

You and me both...

I can't even fatham the thoughts behind some of the actions that some parents are doing nowadays...

As Shandy said..the wrong people are having kids...

reminds me of a lady who left her three month old baby in a car on Frederick street in the sweltering heat for more than half hour. then she comes back outside to see her windows smashed and the baby crying in a police officers arms, and she have the nerve to get vex and say is her child and she knows what she was doing and that she was only planning on staying in the store for five mins.......

so sad to hear such irresponsible people are parents....

Yea this is sad...Some people should not have kids

I want to know why the kids couldn't stay with her in the Daycare with her untill the husband came for them.........it's a Daycare not like it was an office where the kids would disrupt the work place.