A Georgia mother charged in the hot car death of her 1-year-old son last week is still in a Gwinnett County jail without bond.
Prosecutors don’t believe Deja Coleman’s claim that she forgot her son was still in the backseat of her car when she arrived to work at Northside Gwinnett Hospital on the morning of July 29.
Georgia defense attorney Tom Ford spoke to Channel 2 News about Coleman’s case on Tuesday. Ford is calling for federal legislation to include backseat sensors in all new cars to prevent children from being left in hot cars.
He called the baby’s death “an honest, human error” caused by sleep deprivation.
“Ms. Coleman currently sits in jail without bond, separated from her surviving four-year-old child and six-year-old autistic son, purely due to an honest, human error caused by profound exhaustion,” he said.
“We do not punish folks in this country for being human,” Ford said in a statement. “The answer is engineering. Spending a couple of hundred dollars on a sensor when a car is built will ensure no more babies suffer an unimaginably horrific death.”
Coleman, 29, told police she dropped her other two children off at daycare and drove to work at the hospital as usual on July 29. Coleman said she arrived at work around 6:50 a.m. and forgot her son was in the backseat.
Hours later, a hospital employee walking by the car noticed the baby boy “slumped in the car seat” and banged on the window, but there was no response. The employee called 911, WSB-TV reported.
Emergency responders tried CPR to revive the baby, but he had been dead in his carseat for hours. An hour after his body was removed, the temperature inside the car was 117-degrees.
Gwinnett County Police Captain Dena Pauly said she located the mother inside the hospital after running the car’s tag. Pauly said Coleman “was devastated” when told that her son was dead.
Coleman was booked into the Gwinnett County Detention Center on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children.
Coleman’s 2 other children are in the care of their father while she is in custody.