An all-too-familiar tragedy recently unfolded in Georgia, leading to what advocates say is an unusually aggressive prosecution of a mother who unknowingly left her baby in a hot car where he died.
Daniel Coleman, 17 months old, was the 17th child in the United States to die in a hot car in 2026, and at least three more have died since, according to Kids and Car Safety, an organization that tracks the deaths and advocates for children's safety in cars. An average of 40 children die this way every year in the country, according to the organization.
Georgia prosecutors charged Deja Coleman, Daniel’s mother, with second-degree murder.
Amber Rollins, executive director of Kids and Car Safety, said Coleman was a "wonderful, loving mother" who, due to stress that compounded a common memory process in the brain, "lost awareness" that her baby was in the car and not at daycare where she believed he was all day.
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"Locking people up and charging them criminally for a tragic accident that they couldn't see coming is just inhumane," Rollins said.
The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office declined to comment.
Daniel Coleman, age 1, died in July after being left in a hot car for hours. His mother, Deja Coleman, now faces a second-degree murder charge.
What happened in the case?
On July 29, Deja Coleman drove her three sons, ages 6, 4 and 1, to their daycare center. Then, she drove to the hospital where she worked as a certified nursing assistant. Hours later, a bystander called police to report an unresponsive baby inside a locked car.
Temperatures reached near 90 degrees that day in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and baby Daniel did not survive. Police officers broke a window to get him out of the car, and an hour later, the temperature inside the vehicle was still 117 degrees, Lawrenceville Police Captain Dena Pauly said.
Coleman, 29, who police said forgot the baby in the car and was "devastated" when she learned what happened, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children.
Defense attorney Tom Ford said Coleman was experiencing "medical grade" sleep deprivation. She and her boys were living at a protective shelter after she was allegedly abused by her husband, Ford and Rollins said. Her oldest child is autistic and nonspeaking, needing significant attention and care, and the baby was teething and not sleeping well.
Police said Coleman told investigators she had a habit of bringing the older two into the daycare first, then getting the baby out of the car and bringing him inside. Ford said she would sometimes bring all three in at the same time, with the baby on her hip.
Coleman even brought Daniel's diaper bag inside that day, but at some point lost awareness and believed she already brought the baby inside, Rollins and Ford said. The boys' normal daycare provider wasn't there that day, and the staff weren't as familiar with the kids, Rollins said.
Murder charge 'cruel and unusual,' advocate says
Of cases where a child was unknowingly left in a car, about 41% do not lead to criminal charges, Rollins said. About 31% of the total incidents end in convictions, and Rollins said many of those involve plea deals so a parent can avoid jail time or a drawn-out legal battle.
So far this year, there have been 12 cases involving children who died after being left in cars, and felony charges were brought in seven of those cases, Rollins said. More typically, charges include involuntary homicide or neglect, she said.
Though police said Coleman forgot Daniel in the car, Pauly said the second-degree murder charge in Georgia does not require malicious forethought, and in Coleman's case, it was "simply neglect." If convicted of the murder charge, Coleman would face 10 to 30 years in prison.
Rollins called the charge "cruel and unusual."
"Prosecuting these tragedies criminally, it doesn't just work against prevention, it takes a traumatized parent and just absolutely destroys them. And on top of that, the living children in these families lose a parent after they've already lost a sibling, and that's just cruel," Rollins said of cases where children are unintentionally left.
The science behind why parents leave kids in cars
When a child dies in a hot car, the most common reason is that they were unintentionally left there by a parent or other caregiver, according to data by Kids and Car Safety. Less commonly, children gain access to a car on their own and become trapped, or in some cases they are left intentionally.
David Diamond, a neuroscientist at the University of South Florida, studies what goes on in the brain when a parent forgets their child in a car. There is competition in the brain between prospective memory, or the memory of things you are supposed to do in the future (such as drop a child off on the way to work), and the much stronger habit-based memory (such as the routine drive from home to work). He said it's the mental process of driving away with a cup of soda on a car's roof.
A cup of soda and a child are of course not the same, Diamond said, but the brain function that causes someone to unintentionally leave their child in a car is the same.
"As they exit the car, they have no awareness that the child is in the car," Diamond said, adding that their brains can even create a "false memory" that they did indeed drop the child off.
Factors like a change in routine, sleep deprivation or stress can cause prospective memory to fail much more easily, while habit-based memory is not affected, he said.
Kids and Car Safety recommends taking these steps to prevent a hot car tragedy:
Place your child's diaper bag or another object, like a stuffed animal, in the front passenger seat as a visual reminder that the child is in the car with you.
Make a habit of opening the back door every time you park to make sure a child isn't left behind, even if you are alone. To enforce the habit, place an item you will need to start your day, like your cellphone, employee badge or purse, in the back seat.
Ask your childcare provider to call you right away if your child doesn't arrive as scheduled.
Communicate clearly with others who are getting your children in and out of the car.
Advocates are pushing lawmakers to mandate that car manufacturers include technology that will alert when someone is left behind. Another law Kids and Car Safety supports is mandating that childcare providers contact parents if children do not arrive as scheduled. New Jersey is the only state with such a law, Rollins said.
