Kathreen Adams, on the left, and Christopher McLean, on the right appear in mugshots in May 2023 (Holmes County Sheriff’s Office)
Two Florida parents are facing charges because their 2-year-old girl died in a hot car after being locked inside for roughly 14 hours, law enforcement said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Kathreen Adams, 23, and Christopher McLean, 32, each stand accused of child neglect, possession of methamphetamine, and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Additional and much more serious charges are likely in the offing, law enforcement said, pending the results of an autopsy on the toddler.
Holmes County Sheriff John Tate said the Holmes County dispatch first received a 911 call at 3:43 p.m. on Tuesday.
The woman on the other end of the line was “disturbed” and “screaming,” and the dispatcher was unable to obtain much information or details about “what was going on,” the sheriff said.
A deputy was then dispatched to perform a welfare check.
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“The first deputy arrived on the scene within two minutes,” Tate said during the press conference. “Once he arrived on scene, he was met outside with an individual carrying a baby that was unresponsive. When I say, ‘a baby’, it was a 2-year-old. Immediately the deputy began CPR – started trying to do life-saving measures on the child.”
Soon, EMS personnel arrived, law enforcement said, and the efforts at resuscitation fell to them – but by then it was simply too late.
The baby girl was pronounced dead at 3:59 p.m. Her body temperature at the time was 107 degrees, the sheriff said.
Both parents were immediately taken into custody for questioning, Tate said. Due to the extremely high temperature of the dead child’s body, investigators knew “something wasn’t adding up.”
Eventually, investigators came to the conclusion that the girl had been left in the car, the sheriff said.
Adams was then confronted with that conclusion and said she got off work around midnight the night before, went to the babysitter’s house to pick up her 2-year-old and 4-year-old, and then got home, Tate said. Once she got home, the younger child was asleep so the parent “decided to leave the child in the car and went inside and ultimately fell asleep,” Tate said. The parents either didn’t wake up or didn’t realize they had forgotten about the baby girl until 3:41 p.m. that afternoon — a matter of minutes before the victim was pronounced dead.
“Once they realized that the child was still in the car, they went out and found [her] unresponsive,” Tate explained.
The 4-year-old is currently in the custody of the Sunshine State’s child welfare agency, the sheriff said.
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The incident is still under investigation, the sheriff said, citing “grey areas about what happened between the time they found the child and when they called 911.” He added that cellular phone records and other pieces of information are being sought to clear up those issues.
“The mom did confess to leaving the child in the car for about 14 hours,” Tate said. “The dad – we tried to interview him. He was very uncooperative. He [invoked] his rights and did not wish to give us a statement and talk to us at that time.”
According to the HCSO, search warrants were executed at the residence that turned up multiple “packages with methamphetmine,” other relatively minor drugs, and drug paraphernalia.
“So, basically, once the mom confessed, we arrested the mom and the father on numerous charges to deal with the drugs and stuff,” the sheriff said. He added that blood draws were ordered for both parents. The parents are likely to face additional charges for the child’s death.
“There will be more charges coming,” Tate said. “They will be faced with some type of manslaughter or murder charge.”
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