Baby's death still under investigation

By JENNIFER ROUSE
For the Gazette-Times

Autopsy results may determine whether charges are filed

HARRISBURG — Medical examiners completed an autopsy Tuesday of a 7-month-old boy found dead after being left alone in a car, but they likely won't know exactly what caused the baby's death for some time, Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright said.

Seven-month-old Brody James Fox stopped breathing after being left in his mother's black Pontiac Bonneville for some time Monday afternoon at the Diamond Hill RV Park outside Harrisburg.

According to investigators, the child's mother, Michell Lee Fox, 24, of Roseburg, was inside a travel trailer with a friend, smoking marijuana and methamphetamine, while the baby was left outside in the car.

Burright said no arrests will be made until the autopsy results are known.

"We don't know at this point what caused the child's death," he said. "We know the circumstances of what was going on down there, with the mother and the friend in the travel trailer, using drugs, leaving the child unattended in the car, but until we know the results, we need to wait."

The Diamond Hill RV Park is quiet place, just off Interstate 5. There is a small playground, an office and a laundry room with a table inside where residents can exchange paperback books with each other. Ducks wander nearby, and rabbits hop lazily all over the park. The death happened in space No. 87, down a lane at the back of the park.

On Tuesday afternoon, a black Pontiac Bonneville was still parked in space No. 87, a child seat still in the back. A dog barked loudly from inside a 15-foot camper, but curtains were drawn tightly on all the windows, and no one answered a knock at the door.

A man named Eddy, who would not give his last name, lives two spaces down. He said he saw the mother and baby around the park, and he sometimes said hello to her in the laundry room.

"I just said, ‘Hi, good morning, you have a cute baby.' That's all," he said. "He was a cute baby. It's a sad thing."

Eddy said he has lived at the park for about six months and thought that the mother and baby had lived there, with a man who he thought was her husband or boyfriend, for at least that long.

Authorities say Fox actually lived in Roseburg and was at the RV park that day visiting a friend.

Neighbors say that there was a commotion Monday afternoon, and they heard that the baby wasn't breathing. An assistant manager attempted CPR, with no success. Brody couldn't be revived when Harrisburg Fire District medics arrived.

Burright said it's not clear just how long the baby was in the car, and detectives don't know whether the windows were up or down while the baby was inside. They were down when deputies arrived.

"She claims she had gone to the store with the baby a couple hours prior, but other witnesses dispute that," he said. "They say the baby had been there several hours prior without moving."

Burright said that when the autopsy results are known, detectives will submit the case to the district attorney's office to determine whether to file charges.

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