Two Toddlers Dead After Being Left In A Car Overnight

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Two young girls have died after after their mother intentionally left them in a car for over 15 hours, Texas authorities said.

The girls’ mother, 19-year-old Amanda Hawkins, was charged with 2 counts of abandoning or endangering a child, Kerr County Sheriff W.R. “Rusty” Hierholzer said.

Hawkins, as well as a 16-year-old male friend, initially took the children to Peterson Regional Medical Center in Kerrsville, but the girls were found to be in “grave condition” and transferred to the University Hospital in San Antonio, according to the release.

Brynn Hawkins, 1, and Addyson Overgard-Eddy, 2, died at the hospital around 5 p.m. Thursday, the release confirmed.

Authorities became suspicious when Hawkins told hospital staff that she, her male friend, and the two children had been at a nearby lake, where the girls smelled flowers before collapsing, the news release said.

“They thought maybe they’d gotten into something poisonous — that’s what their story was,” Hierholzer said.

Investigators later determined the children actually had been left inside their mother’s vehicle for 15 hours — from Tuesday night until noon on Wednesday — while she and a 16-year-old male friend were out with other friends inside a residence, the release said.

The sheriff didn’t say what the cause of deaths were but said that temperatures reached into the 90s during the day on Wednesday.

“She left them in the car — intentionally in the car — while her and the 16-year-old male friend were in the house,” the sheriff said. “They were in the house all night. The male friend for a little bit went to sleep in the car a little while but then went back to the house.”

People inside the house reportedly heard the children crying but nobody went to check.

The children were unconscious when Hawkins took them out of the car around noon Wednesday, the sheiff said.

The news release also said that she attempted to bathe them but didn’t immediately take them to the hospital because she “did not want to get into trouble,” but her story quickly unraveled under questioning, the sheriff said.

Charges against her may be upgraded after the case goes to a grand jury, t and the 16-year-old male may also face charges.

“This is by far the most horrific case of child endangerment that I have seen in the 37 years that I have been in law enforcement,” Hierholzer, said.