Attorney says mother in Lawrenceville hot car death made ‘good faith’ mistake
In the days before her baby was found dead inside a hot car, Deja Coleman had been staying up nights with her teething 1-year-old, caring for her two other children and juggling 12-hour work shifts, according to her attorney.
On Wednesday, Coleman’s baby died after she forgot to drop him off at daycare and left him in the back seat of her car while she worked at a Gwinnett County hospital, Lawrenceville police said. Daniel Coleman was inside the locked car for about nine hours, authorities said, and the temperature inside the vehicle was 117 degrees an hour after a window had been broken and the child was removed.
During a Friday first appearance court hearing, 29-year-old Coleman was denied bond for charges of felony second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children.
Her attorney, Tom Ford, called the tragedy a mistake and described Coleman as a young, sleep-deprived single mother. He plans to ask the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office to consider a lesser charge or push for it as the case continues through the court.
“We don’t want to criminalize good faith mistakes, no matter how horrific the death is. We don’t want to criminalize that,” Ford said in a phone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson told the AJC her office would not comment on the case while it is pending. She confirmed an Aug. 11 hearing for Coleman, whose last name also appears as Simpson on certain documents.
Coleman had a routine. Before work, she would first drop off her 6-year-old and 4-year-old at daycare because the oldest needs extra attention because of an autism diagnosis. Then she would loop back to her car to bring the baby into the daycare, Ford said.
That routine broke down Wednesday.
Police spokesperson Capt. Dena Pauly told reporters the following day that Coleman “forgot to make that second trip” before she proceeded to work. The baby was left in the vehicle outside Northside Hospital Gwinnett from around 6:55 a.m. to 3:55 p.m., when police got into the car and found him dead in his car seat, according to investigators.
Ford said the daycare is just a few minutes from Coleman’s job and that her 1-year-old was asleep in the car.
Pauly said Coleman “was devastated” after police met with her in a conference room of the hospital and told her about her son’s death.
Ford said Coleman was working as a nurse at the Gwinnett hospital.
He said he hopes to decrease Coleman’s charges from second-degree murder to felony involuntary manslaughter, which carries a shorter sentence of one to 10 years. His reasoning is that Coleman made a mistake without intent to harm her child.
“Sending this woman to prison for 10 to 30 years will not bring her baby back. It will only serve to tear her away from her surviving four-year-old and her autistic six-year-old, who need their mother’s presence to survive this trauma,” Ford said in a separate written statement to the AJC.
In recent years, metro Atlanta prosecutors have pursued several closely watched cases against parents involving hot car deaths.
A Cobb County father, Justin Ross Harris, was convicted in 2016 for leaving his 22-month-old son in a car in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The Georgia Supreme Court eventually overturned Harris’ murder conviction in 2022, citing improperly admitted evidence, though it upheld unrelated convictions against him for crimes involving an underage girl.
Nearly a year ago, in October, Ariel Osbey was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and making a false statement after she left her 13-month-old daughter in a car alone for hours in 2023 in Newton County.
Ford said he also hopes to work toward a bond for Coleman that would allow her to be released from custody while still prohibiting her from being around her children. He hopes that, with therapy and time, Coleman can be reunited with her children.
“The DA’s office here in Gwinnett County is excellent, and I think they typically exercise excellent discretion, and I think they will ultimately agree to make the right decisions here,” Ford said, adding that he is “cautiously optimistic” Coleman can avoid a prison sentence.
On average, 37 children under the age of 15 die annually from heatstroke after being left in a vehicle, according to the National Safety Council, a nonprofit that tracks such fatalities. The incident marked the 17th hot car death this year nationwide and the first in Georgia, the council has reported.