CHILD FOUND DEAD NEAR WAKE FOREST
News Observer.com, Raleigh, NC
September 17, 2002

A 2-year-old girl was found dead Tuesday in a church daycare center van after a driver apparently forgot about her and left her there for about seven hours.

The child, Ranekia Dena Clifton, of 136 Massey Apartments in Wake Forest, had been picked up at her home Tuesday morning to attend the daycare at Corinth United Church of Christ on Zebulon Road, near Wake Forest.

The driver parked the van at the church and left to take another van loaded with children to a nearby school without taking Ranekia out of her safety seat, which was strapped to the seat behind him.

"We are trying to find out what it was that caused enough distraction as he got out of the first van and headed to second van for him to forget or overlook the child," said Maj. T. S. Matthews, who heads the Wake Sheriff's Criminal Investigation Division. "It was not until this afternoon that he went back to get the other van and that he saw the child in the safety seat." Rescue teams were called, but the child was dead on the scene. The driver, whose name was not released, was being interviewed by authorities and had not been charged Tuesday night.

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