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Coroner: 2 kids overheated in Mom's car
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[September 13, 2007]
CHARLESTON, S.C.
(AP) -- Autopsies confirmed two toddlers whose bodies were found in trash bags at their home died from being left in a sweltering car while their mother worked, the coroner said Wednesday.
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 When police found Sametta Heyward wailing "Oh, my babies" at her apartment in July, she told them she'd left her children in the car after a baby sitter canceled.
A day earlier Heyward, a single mother, had gone to work at a county-run group home for people with disabilities, leaving her children in the hot car with battery-powered fans, food and drinks, authorities said.
Temperatures outside were the upper 80s but could have reached 130 degrees in the car, authorities said.
She told relatives that when she got to the car later that night, the children were unconscious and had weak pulses. But the coroner said the children were dead by then.
"The autopsy shows just what we thought it would, that the children died of overheating," Coroner Glenn Rhoad said in releasing the results on Wednesday.
Heyward returned to her apartment, washed and dressed the children and put their bodies in trash bags, which were found under the kitchen sink in her apartment, authorities said.
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 She is charged with two counts of homicide by child abuse in the deaths of Triniti Campbell, 1, and Shawn Campbell Jr., 4.
Heyward's attorney said the autopsy results were consistent with what was known about the case but declined to discuss them in detail.
Attorney Andy Savage said he may ask for Heyward to be released from jail on bail, once a mental evaluation is complete. "She's still having some real depressive episodes," he said.
He had previously said the mental evaluation may shed light on what happened.
Prosecutor Blair Jennings said Heyward has not yet entered a plea but is expected to have a preliminary hearing within a few weeks.
[Associated Press; by Bruce Smith]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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