Child dies after being left in van

The Associated Press

WEST ALLIS — A toddler apparently left in a day care center van in hot and muggy weather all day Thursday was found dead.

The youngster was found in the vehicle after her mother arrived to pick her up, police and witnesses said.

Officers responded to a call at 2:59 p.m. of an unresponsive child in a van and confirmed upon arrival that the child had died, said police Detective Lt. Chuck Padgett.

The little girl was approximately 2 years old and may have been in the van since 7 a.m., he said.

The van was parked outside the business in temperatures that reached into the 80s. One window may have been open a crack, he said.

Late Thursday, investigators were interviewing the driver, trying to determine the exact sequence of events.

Charges had not been filed against either the driver or the center, and the driver was not under arrest.

“He came here voluntarily and he’s cooperating with us right now,” Padgett said.

The victim’s identity was not immediately released.

Karen Smith, a mother who was in the area, told reporters she was there when the child’s mother came to the Come and Grow with Me Learning and Arts Center looking for the girl.

“This lady was screaming, ‘Where’s my kid? Where’s my kid?’” Smith told WTMJ-TV. ‘”You guys had my kid, picked up my kid at seven o’clock this morning and you’re trying to tell me you haven’t seen my kid all day?’

“So then she came all the way out the door and they looked in the van, and her kid was just laying there dead.”

Smith said workers at the center attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation but got no response.

Sue Sthokal, who owns First Class Child Care next to the other day care, said she stepped outside and saw police talking to the mother of the dead child.

“I saw the mother crying in the alley and police were talking to her,” she said. “I just want people to understand. This is not every day care. This is a freak accident.”

Christina Clark, 23, who lives above the Come and Grow with Me center, said she saw the toddler’s mother carry her child from the center van to an ambulance, then became distraught when other parents arrived.

“The mother yelled to another parent that her daughter was dead,” Clark said.

“It just makes me think that it could have been my children,” she said tearfully.

Word of the death had reached many parents who looked harried as they picked up their youngsters later Thursday.

“It’s sad, really sad,” said Jose Reynolds, 25, who had picked up his two children, ages 2 and 9 at the center Thursday afternoon.

“I believe it’s just an accident, but the driver should be let go,” he said.

He said the center’s operators “looked terrible. They looked physically shaken.”

Kael Lampe, 33, whose 8-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter attend the day care next door, added a stuffed animal, flowers and a knitted white cross with yellow trim to a growing memorial outside the day care where the child died.

Lampe said she could barely stand the heat in her car when she drove to get gasoline earlier in the day, and she couldn’t bear to think how a little child would feel in a closed vehicle.