Deaths of two Texas toddlers left in hot car ruled homicides

WEATHERFORD, Texas — The May 26 death of two toddlers — reportedly left in a hot car as punishment — have been ruled homicides. 

Cynthia Marie Randolph, 25, told investigators in June that she intentionally shut the vehicle door and left the children inside to teach her 2-year-old a lesson after the girl did not obey her, according to the Parker County, Texas Sheriff’s Office.

The girl and boy – 2-year-old Juliet Ramirez and 14-month-old Cavanaugh Ramirez – were pronounced dead at 4:32 p.m. at their Texas home during an afternoon when temperatures reached the upper 90s.

Randolph has been in the Parker County Jail since her arrest June 23 on charges of injury to a child. 

When Texas Rangers and a special agent with the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General interviewed Randolph on June 23, Randolph told them she found the children playing in the vehicle around 12:15 p.m. on May 26. 

Randolph ordered the girl out of the vehicle but the 2-year-old refused, the sheriff’s office reported Randolph said. 

Randolph told investigators that she shut the door to the vehicle to teach her daughter a lesson and believed she could get herself and her brother out of the car when ready. 

She admitted to then going inside the house, smoking marijuana and taking a nap for two to three hours, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Randolph also said that after finding the children in the car, she broke the window to the vehicle to make it look like an accident, the sheriff’s office reported. 

Randolph gave a different account on May 26, according to the sheriff's office.

Randolph originally told investigators that she was inside the house folding laundry and watching television as the children played in an enclosed back porch visible from the living room. 

Randolph said that 20 to 30 minutes had passed when she realized she had not heard the children, looked into the room where they had been playing and saw they were gone, according to the sheriff’s office.

Randolph said she spent the next 30 to 40 minutes searching for the children.

Randolph reported that she found the children in the vehicle, where they had locked themselves inside, and broke a window in an attempt to save her unresponsive children.

She told sheriff’s deputies on scene that the children had been in the vehicle no more than an hour, according to the sheriff’s office.

Coyne writes for the Weatherford, Texas Democrat.