A Florida woman has been arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child after she left her infant in a hot car to attend church, officials at Palm Bay Police said.
On Thursday, officers responded to a call at the Mount of Olives Evangelical Church, located 6165 Babcock Street in Palm Bay after it was discovered that an 11-month-old child was unresponsive in a car.
Upon arrival, it was found that the infant had been left in the vehicle for roughly three hours while the parents went to a church nearby.
Dectectives later found that the child’s mother, Bulaine Molme, was late to arrive to the service she was scheduled to officiate. She told authorities she thought her child was brought inside the place of worship by a member of the church.
When church service was over, Molme realized that her child was not inside the church. She then rushed to her vehicle and found her child unresponsive. She then called the police who performed CPR until rescue personnel arrived.
The child was then rushed to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Molme was arrested and charged shortly thereafter. The child’s father, who was also in the church at the time of the incident, has not been named as a suspect at the time of this writing.
This story is developing.
According to data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), “51 States reported a total of 1,809 fatalities due to child neglect or abuse.
Furthermore, “child fatalities in 2019 involved children younger than three years, and children younger than one year accounted for 45.4 percent of all fatalities. Young children are the most vulnerable for many reasons, including their dependency, small size, and inability to defend themselves.”
TO learn more about child abuse and neglect, prevention tools and other ways to help, visit the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) here.
