Theo Sabo, Peoria, Arizona 5-year-old hot car death as parents, Anca and Mihail Sabo are charged with negligent homicide and child abuse for leaving the boy unattended for 3 hours as the boy’s defense argue that the charges are onerous and that there had been a miscommunication leading to the boy’s tragic death.
The parents of a 5-year-old Peoria, Arizona boy found ‘unresponsive’ in the family car over the weekend have been charged with causing his ‘hot car death’.
Theo Sabo was found unresponsive in a sweltering vehicle outside his family’s $1.1 million property near 67th Avenue and Happy Valley Rd, Peoria, on Sunday, September 13th.
His parents, Anca Sabo, 45, and Mihail Sabo, 50, were charged with negligent homicide and child abuse for leaving him in the vehicle as temperatures reached 105 degrees, Fox 10 reported.
Family miscommunication?
The boy’s death follows the family returning from a from a church baptism around 1 p.m. only to realize some three hours later that the child was unaccounted for. A search for the missing boy led to his mother discovering the five year old ‘unresponsive’ in the family car.
The young boy was pulled from the car by family members and was given CPR after 2.5 hours. After Peoria Fire personnel took him to a nearby hospital, the child was pronounced dead.
According to court documents, the boy’s father told investigators he asked his 14-year-old son to get the 5-year-old out of the car when they first arrived home. However, the teen told police his dad never asked him to do that.
‘It appears that it was either a miscommunication between who or which family member was supposed to get the child out of the car,’ William Kennedy with the Peoria Police Department said.
Defense claims negligence and child abuse charges are too onerous
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the boy’s cause or manner of death. Nevertheless, it is suspected the boy’s death was related to him being unattended in the family vehicle amid sweltering summer temperatures, News12 reported.
At their court appearance on Monday, the parents’ attorney, Leah Dodd, described the situation as a ‘tragedy.’
‘This was a, I can’t overstress this, a tragedy,’ the defense attorney stated.
The attorney also argued abuse and negligent homicide charges were not appropriate.
‘She called 911, she administered life-saving efforts, she answered all questions of detectives. This is not someone who is running away,’ Dodd said.
‘Everything that she and her husband did upon finding the child in the vehicle was standard care.’
‘The child was in the car for more than two and a half hours and the parents were not aware of his location during that whole time,’ Brooke Gaunt with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office stated according to FOX10.
Preventable child hot car death: measures parents should take
Following an initial court appearance on September 14th both parents were given a $150,000 bond. As part of their bail conditions they are not allowed to have contact with each other and are only allowed supervised visits with their other children. They are expected to be back in court in one week.
In the aftermath of the 5-year-old’s hot car death, Cass Herring with Safe Kids Worldwide stated ‘parents must set reminders.’
“There’s a lot of technology that’s built into vehicles as well as car seats. There are sensors, there are apps,” she said.
A child’s body can heat up three to five times faster than an adult’s, making reminders critical.
‘Children also often fall asleep in the car and so just having that extra step, that extra reminder, is very helpful,’ Herring stressed.
A GoFundMe has been set up for the Sabo family to support Theo’s funeral and memorial expenses, and has raised over $242,000 as of Tuesday.
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