UPDATE Wednesday 9:57 a.m. ET:
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department declined to provide any additional information on Wednesday about the investigation into the hot-car death of 2-year-old June Love Agosto. Asked by phone if the girl’s mother was still not in police custody, a Public Information Officer repeated an earlier statement: “We do not have any updates at this time.”
Various spellings of June’s surname have appeared in news reports, including in CrimeOnline. At this time it appears that the correct spelling is Agosto.
UPDATE Tuesday 9:56 a.m. ET:
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed to CrimeOnline that June Love Augusto’s mother is not in police custody. A public information officer also said that a coroner had not made any ruling on the cause or manner of death, despite an earlier report from a local news station indicating that the coroner had determined the 2-year-old’s death inside a heated car was accidental.
The PIO could not comment on whether any arrests were expected. Another person at the sheriff’s office told CrimeOnline that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau is handling the case.
More information is expected on Tuesday. CrimeOnline will continue to provide updates on this developing story.
UPDATE: 8:37 p.m. ET:
According to a recent ABC 7 Los Angeles report, June Love Augusto’s mother is not in police custody, although she has been interviewed. An earlier Fox 11 report indicated that the mother was in custody but has not been charged. CrimeOnline has contacted both local news outlets for further clarification.
The latest report states that police have interviewed witnesses as well as the girl’s mother, and that no arrests have been made.
UPDATE, 11:46 a.m. ET:
Fox 11 reports that the toddler’s mother has been taken into custody, but it does not appear she has been charged. A coroner has reportedly ruled the death an accident, not a homicide.
The more recent report also lists the victim’s name as June Love Agosto, a different spelling than was reported listed on the coroner’s report.
This is a developing story. CrimeOnline will provide further updates when more information is available.
ORIGINAL STORY:
A toddler died in California after her mother allegedly left her in a car with the heater on for five hours.
KTLA reports that 2-year-old June Love Augusto of West Carson died on September 23 after she was left alone in a heated car for hours while her mother drank alcohol with a friend, and then fell asleep.
According to a coroner’s report obtained by the news station, the girl’s mother admitted to police that she left the girl alone in the car before midnight on September 21, placing a blanket on the girl and turning the car heater on, before the mother got into a friend’s car, where they drank alcohol.
The mother said she fell asleep in the other car and woke at about 5 a.m. the next morning. When she went back to her car, she found her daughter unresponsive and covered in vomit, with signs her skin had melted. The coroner’s report describe the girl’s condition and her mother’s attempts to save her:
“Vomit was present on her shirt and the car seat. Skin was coming off the decedent’s back… [The mother] places her on the grass and sprayed her with the water hose in an attempt to cool her down. The decedent was taken into the house and a call was placed to 911.”
According to the report, paramedics said the girl had a temperature of 107.5 degrees when she arrived to a hospital. She reportedly had burns on her skin and cloudiness in her eyes.
Lifesaving attempts were unsuccessful and Augusto was pronounced dead.
Prior to confessing the apparent truth to police, the girl’s mother initially claimed she had only left her daughter alone for a few minutes, according to the KTLA report. As of Sunday, the mother had not been arrested.
According to the report in the Norwich Bulletin, the girl’s mother lost custody of a 3-year-old child during a 2013 drug bust at a residence in Connecticut, where the child was found lying on a bed where cocaine was also found.
As KTLA notes, a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign has been established to raise funds for the girl’s grieving father, though the girl’s surname is spelled differently on the campaign page than it is in court documents.
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[Feature image: June Love Augusto/GoFundMe]
