The more I learn about this story, the more I find the mother's account of what happened completely improbable. First, why are two children playing alone without any supervision? At that age, my daughter was never allowed to be in a separate room unless I had a direct line of sight into that room from the room I was in - the same goes for my 4 year old nephew who I kept nearly every day for the first 2 1/2 years of his life.
Second, why are the keys AND cellphone left in a place where the mother wouldn't either see or hear them being taken? My keys are always in my purse (unless I'm driving) and my cell phone is with me at all times because, like A LOT of people, we don't have a landline and I won't know if someone is calling or texting if my phone isn't with me or very close to me - and I would say my situation on where I keep my phone and my keys is pretty typical.
Third, why did the kids take both the phone and the keys? That seems extremely odd in itself and sounds more like a CYA and cover your bases excuse than anything else.
Fourth, how do two children get out the door to go outside without making enough noise to be caught in the act? Kids that young don't understand the concept that sound travels.
Fifth, I SERIOUSLY doubt that these two very young children hatched a plan and carried it out without delay. Kids at that age usually aren't that focused on activities that involve a lot of steps. They are usually easily distracted by other things they encounter along their path. And, even if it's possible that one child was focused enough to carry out the plan without any deviations, its highly doubtful that both children would do that - certainly not without a lot of instruction from the older child, which (again) should draw attention to the children. I mean, teenagers trying to sneak the car keys so they can take the car without permission have trouble carrying out this sort of plan without getting caught. The time it would take for two very young children to get to the car after acquiring the keys and managing to get out of the house should take a decent amount of time.
Sixth, from the video and the photo, all the cars seem to be in a heavily shaded area, which would greatly prolong how long it would take for the car to get hot enough for the kids to die from the heat. In the shade the temperature would be 10-15 degrees cooler than the actual temperature because there isn't direct sunlight. So, according to reports on this subject, if the temperature in the shaded car was lower than the 96 degrees that was reported as the temperature that day because the car is in the shade, the amount of time it would take for the children to die from the heat goes from 20 minutes in direct sunlight to closer to an hour in the shade.
Seventh, why wouldn't the kids get out of the car when they started to get hot and sweaty?! They clearly (if the mother's story is to be believed) are capable of opening the car door, entering the car, locking the car, and unlocking the car. So it seems to make perfect sense that when they started to get upset because of how hot it was inside the car (and those of us with kids all know how cranky they get when they get hot and sweaty), they easily could have just gotten back out of the car, or at least just opened the door, if what the mother says is true about the children's abilities to enter and exit and lock and unlock the car.
I'm sure the police will thoroughly test all of these variables to confirm or deny the mother's story, but just on the surface with the small amount of information that is known, it really looks as though the mother's story has a LOT of problems. Even if you put all the variables aside (kids getting the phone AND car keys, kids getting out of the house without making enough noise to draw attention to themselves, kids managing to get the car unnoticed, kids managing to get the car unlocked, kids managing to get inside the car, and the kids then locking the car) and only focus on the temperature it could easily be a situation where those kids were missing for well over an hour. If that turns out to be true, it's pretty hard to explain away not knowing where the kids were for an hour or more. After about 10 minutes (because they were supposed to be in the house) I would have been making phone calls. If I looked for my phone and couldn't find it, I would also immediately realize my keys were missing too because they were supposedly together. I don't see how the police can't quickly and easily prove the mother's story wrong. This is sounding more and more like a Susan Smith situation - even the ages of the children are almost exactly the same. For the sake of those two poor babies I hope and pray that LE gets to the bottom of this and justice is delivered for those babies.
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