Temperature inside car involved in baby's death could have exceeded 130 degrees
NEW PHILADELPHIA ― A child who died after being left inside a car Thursday for about five hours would have been exposed to temperatures well over 100 degrees, according to a research meteorologist in California.
"With an outside air temperature of approximately 84 degrees, the inside air temperature of the car could have been in excess of 130 degrees," Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University told The Times-Reporter by email. "Objects or a person inside the car in direct sunlight would have been significantly hotter."
The car was in the 500 block of Ashwood Lane NW, an alley behind the strip of commercial buildings facing W. High Avenue.
More:Landon S. Parrott charged with murder in connection with death of 1-year-old son
Police have charged Landon S. Parrott with murder in connection with the death of his 14-month-old son Kyler Phillip Allen Parrott. The 19-year-old is also charged with involuntary manslaughter and two counts of child endangering.
The Tuscarawas County Coroner's Office is investigating the death.
Kyler is described in his obituary as a "loving mama's boy who will be deeply missed by his mother" Vanessa Marie Fraser-Parrott, as well as his grandparents, Casey and Trevor Neering, Lacy and Beau Mize, Karen and Marty Bloom, and Jolene Markwell; great-grandmother, Dollina Wear; great-grandfather, Phillip Markwell, Jr.; godfather, Zane Newton-Rummell; and aunt, Victoria Fraser.
"He will be remembered for his sweet disposition and gentle way with animals, even at such a young age, and for his enthusiasm for his best friend Mickey Mouse," said the death notice posted by the R.K. Lindsey Funeral Home of Dennison, which is handling arrangements.
A private family service is planned with public services to be held on a future date.
Police Chief Michael Goodwin said the boy was left unattended in a car while the outside temperature was 87 degrees.
If Kyler is found to have died because of extreme heat, his would be the 22nd pediatric vehicular heatstroke death nationwide, and the first in Ohio, this year, according to Null. Last year, there a total of 23 such deaths in the U.S. (https://www.noheatstroke.org/hyperthermia2021.htm) and one in Ohio, according to Null, who studies the subject. It would be the 22nd pediatric vehicular heatstroke death in the Ohio since 1998. (http://noheatstroke.org/state.htm).
Police were notified at 2 p.m. Thursday by Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital after Parrott took his unresponsive child to the emergency room.
"During the initial investigation, the detectives found inconsistent information being given by the father," Goodwin wrote on his department's Facebook page. "As the investigation continued and evidence was collected, the father was confronted with the new information and confessed to detectives what had happened to his son.
"During the interview it appears that this was not a matter of forgetting the child but was a deliberate act so as the child would not be a disturbance while in the house," Goodwin wrote.
Parrott is being held in the Tuscarawas County jail on $250,000 bond. He is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Thursday in New Philadelphia Municipal Court.
Null's research was originally published in the magazine Pediatrics(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/116/1/e109 ) and is kept up-to-date online at http://noheatstroke.org/.
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Reach Nancy at 330-364-8402 or nancy.molnar@timesreporter.com.
On Twitter: @nmolnarTR
This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Temperature inside car in which baby was left would have exceeded 100
