Baby Killed By 6-Year-Old Sister While Dad Is Shopping, Left Kids Alone In Car
The sister, 6, “got angry and wrapped the seatbelt” around the 1-year-old boy’s head.
Adrian Dreshaun Middleton [Baytown Police Department]
HOUSTON, TX — A Texas father left his 6-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son in a car together while he went thrift store shopping — but came back to find the girl had strangled the baby to death with a seatbelt.
On May 20, Adrian Dreshaun Middleton brought his two kids along when he drove to the Family Thrift Center. Before he went inside to look for clothes, he gave the siblings water and Cheetos and put on a movie in the car, which he kept running so the two would have air-conditioning.
While the kids’ dad was inside the store, the little boy started crying. His sister played with him for a while, but when she quit he began fussing again. According to court documents, “she got angry and wrapped the seatbelt” around her brother’s neck. She told police that the baby then “stopped crying and she thought he was asleep.”
When Middleton, 26, returned to the car, his daughter asked to use the bathroom and confessed she “did something bad.”
He saw the seatbelt encircling his son’s head and called 911 for help before beginning CPR. The baby was later pronounced dead at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Middleton alleged to detectives that he was in the store for 30 to 45 minutes and had left the young children strapped in their car seats, periodically checking on them through the storefront window.
However, his story began to fall apart when investigators said they noticed there were no car seats in the vehicle. A check of surveillance tapes also revealed Middleton spent “approximately one hour and forty minutes” — over twice as long as he had claimed — “in the store without checking on his children who had been left in the car.”
Though Middleton’s brother told KTRK-TV that his nephew’s death “was an accident,” a coroner ruled the baby died from homicide by strangulation.
Prosecutors accused Middleton of putting his son at “an unreasonable risk of harm,” and he now faces the felony charge of abandoning a child.
Due to her age, the girl will not be tried for killing the baby. She is currently in the care of her grandmother.
Read more: KTRK-TV
