Cary woman who left kids in car while she gambled sentenced in daughters’ deaths
A Cary woman whose children died after she left them in a hot car two years ago has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Launice Battle, 31, left her 2- and 3-year-old daughters in her Toyota Yaris for six hours while she gambled at a sweepstakes parlor on Aug. 27, 2022, The News & Observer previously reported.
The car was parked in a possibly shaded area behind the parlor, according to the chief medical examiner’s autopsy report.
Temperatures reached 95 degrees that day, the reports states.
Battle found the girls unresponsive and drove them to Duke Raleigh Hospital. There, the children were already pulseless and not breathing, according to the report They were pronounced dead after attempted resuscitation.
A judge sentenced Battle in June to seven to 10 years in prison for each child’s death, court documents show.
The N&O could not reach Battle’s lawyer for comment.
On average, 39 children across the United States die each year from heat exposure in vehicles, according to the N.C. Department of Insurance. In 2022, four children died that way in North Carolina.
The temperature inside a car can reach 140 degrees on a 95-degree day after an hour, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
