A Florida grandmother has been charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of her 7-month-old granddaughter in a hot car, less than a year after her toddler grandson drowned in a pond while she napped.
Tracey Nix, 65, was babysitting her seven-month-old granddaughter, Uriel Schock, on Nov. 1 when the infant was discovered dead in the back seat of her SUV.
The 2019 Lexus was parked outside Nix’s house in the small town of Wauchula, where temperatures soared into the 90s that fall day.
Inside, Nix, a former school principal, talked to her dog and practiced the piano.
When interviewed by the police later, the grandmother said she had “just forgotten” about her granddaughter after returning home from lunch with friends, according to an affidavit by the Hardee County Sheriff’s Office.
“To think of the last moments of her life as a mother is gut-wrenching,” Uriel’s mother, Kaila Nix, told ABC Action News.
Her partner, Drew Schock, wondered aloud through sobs: “How do you forget a little girl?”
“All of my airbags went off, I don’t remember how I got out, but I got out and started running to my parent’s house and at this point, I don’t have shoes. I’m just running,” she recalled. “That was my desperation to get to my son.”
Kaila and her partner, Drew Shock, said that after their son’s drowning death they did not trust Tracey “at all” and would never let their eldest child, aged 4, go to her house.
“We were anxious, but I loved my mother and I am a daughter that wanted her mom in her life in some capacity, and in that moment, I thought that I could believe in second chances,” Kaila Nix said.
The mom-of-three added that when she learned that her son’s death was ruled accidental, she was relieved.
“Some sliver child part of me, thought, ‘Ok good, I get to keep this mom. This grandmother. This person,” she said of Tracey Nix.
Kaila Nix said that on Nov. 22, she felt comfortable leaving her daughter in her mother’s care because she knew the people she was going to lunch with and trusted them.
She claimed that an officer from the Hardee County Sheriff’s Office arrived at her house within a few hours and informed her that her baby had died.
“‘I’m sorry, what?’ I said. I know Ezra is no longer alive. ‘What brings you here, like…what is this?’ ‘No, Kaila, your baby is dead,'” the officer explained to her.
Tracey Nix’s lawyer, William Fletcher, said Uriel’s death in the hot car was “obviously an accident,” and that the grandmother was “totally devastated” by the deaths of her two grandchildren.
The 65-year-old could face between 12 and 30 years in prison if found guilty of aggravated manslaughter in her granddaughter’s death, according to the attorney.
“If I’m objective, she needs to go to prison,” Kaila Nix said. “As her daughter, it kills me to say it. As their mother, I demand it. I will fight for them.”
source:nsemwokrom.com
