A California woman who advocated for stricter DUI laws after two of her children were killed by a drunk driver has been charged with manslaughter after officials discovered her intoxicated and unconscious in an SUV with the body of her young daughter, who died locked inside after temperatures soared above 100 degrees.
On Friday afternoon, relatives discovered the 3-year-old daughter and her mother, Sandra Hernandez-Cazares, 42, in her Ford Expedition, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The truck was parked outside Hernandez-Cazares’ apartment in Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles, when temperatures reached approximately 104 degrees, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Hernandez-Cazares was charged with involuntary manslaughter, felony child abuse and endangerment, and one count of causing serious bodily injury to a child under the age of five, according to court records.
She is being held instead of $150,000 bond and faces a maximum term of 12 years in jail, according to the district attorney’s office.
The Orange County Public Defender’s Office, which represents Hernandez-Cazares, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Hernandez-Cazares’ relatives discovered her SUV when school officials informed them that no one had picked up her 5-year-old kid, according to the DA’s news release.
According to the DA’s office, family members shattered the Expedition’s window and discovered Hernandez-Cazares passing out. Her blood alcohol level was later discovered to be four times the legal limit, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The toddler was pronounced dead after resuscitation attempts failed, according to the prosecutor’s office. Medical officials believe the girl died some hours ago, according to prosecutors.
Hernandez-Cazares’ two kids, ages 5 and 9, died in 2012 while on a family vacation at a North Dakota campground when a drunk motorist ran over their tent, according to an email from the prosecutor’s office. She later pressed the state legislature for harsher sanctions, according to the release.
“The unimaginable pain of having your 5-year-old and 9-year-old sons killed by a drunk driver is something from which you can never recover,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the release.
“Anyone who has suffered such a devastating tragedy knows the ripple effects of grief may be able to be hidden, but the heartbreak of losing your children will never go away,” Spitzer stated, according to the statement. “A mother who was robbed of the chance to see two of her sons grow up because of the selfish decision of a stranger will have to live with the fact she will never get to see her little girl grow up because of the choices she made.”
