A mother is being charged with cruelty to children after she left her kids in a car to buy a birthday gift, Hiram police said Monday.
Police found Loleatha Stallworth’s three small children Saturday with wet shirts inside her car outside a Five Below store on Jimmy Lee Smith Parkway. The car was not running and the windows were rolled up.
The children, a 2-year-old and 4-year-old twins, were in “obvious distress, sweating profusely,” and were not in car seats, Hiram police chief T.A Vande Zande said in a news release. The temperature that day was in the high 80s, but the inside of the car was 101.3 degrees.
Officers were able to get the children out of the car and give them water to cool down.
Stallworth, 40, of Powder Springs, was confronted by officers when she came back to the car 10 minutes later. Police said she told them she was inside shopping for a gift.
“I immediately advised her that her actions were improper and put her children in extreme danger,” Officer Stephen Johnson said in the police report. “We see often the multiple cases of children dying from being left in hot cars as well as vehicles being stolen when they are left running.”
There have been 27 hot car deaths this year, according to the release, which includes the recent deaths of twin 15-month-olds Ariel Roxanne and Alaynah Maryanne North in Carrollton.
Stallworth also faces three counts of child restraint violations. She was booked into the Paulding County Adult Detention Center.
The children are in the father’s custody.
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