Mum jailed for locking children in hot car 'to teach them a lesson'
A mother who locked her two toddlers in a car to “teach them a lesson” has been sentenced to two 20-year prison terms to be served simultaneously.
A Parker County jury in Weatherford, North Texas, sentenced 25-year-old Cynthia Marie Randolph to the maximum sentences Monday.
The same jury convicted her of two second-degree felony counts of recklessly causing injury to a child hours earlier.
Randolph’s charges were reduced. She had initially faced two first-degree felony counts of knowingly causing serious injury to a child. A conviction on those could have led to life sentences.
An arrest warrant says Randolph told police she locked one-year-old Cavanaugh Ramirez and two-year-old Juliet Ramirez in the car for several hours to teach them a lesson because her daughter often got out of the car without permission.
“Under our law, a person acts recklessly when they consciously disregard a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur,” proescuting attorney Assistant District Attorney Kathleen Catania said.
“We thought that the evidence supported a finding that she acted knowingly, which means that she knew that her actions were reasonably certain to cause the result, which, in this case, was her childrens’ deaths. This distinction was a pretty challenging one for jurors to make. We appreciate the jury’s dedication throughout this long and emotional trial.”
Dr. Marc Krouse with the Parker and Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office testified that the children died of exogenous hyperthermia, more commonly known as heat stroke.
