The victim’s mother, 53-year-old Rita Pangalangan of Walterboro, and her boyfriend, 45-year-old Larry Eugene King, formerly of Ruffin, were found guilty of murder Friday by a Colleton County General Sessions Court jury. Cristina Pangalangan, whose cerebral palsy rendered her non-verbal and mostly immobile, died of hyperthermia after she was placed in the backseat of her mother’s Volkswagen Jetta and left there for nearly six hours.
Rita Pangalangan and King also were convicted of inflicting great bodily injury on a child. Pangalangan was sentenced to 37 years in prison and King to 32 years.
“Cristina couldn’t scream, and she couldn’t open the car door for herself,” Stone said. “She died because the adults she depended on to keep her safe were too interested in doing drugs and having sex while Cristina literally baked to death.”
Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone has secured convictions against a Colleton County couple who were in the midst of a multi-day methamphetamine binge when they killed a disabled 13-year-old by locking her in a sweltering car.
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