Couple charged with murder for leaving baby in car after 4th of July party

() — A Florida couple has been charged with aggravated murder in the death of an 18-month-old girl abandoned in a car. warm overnight after a July 4 party, police said.

Joel and Jazmine Rondon, both 33 and residents of Lakeland, attended a Fourth of July celebration with their three young children and did not return home until about 3 a.m. the next day, according to a news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

The family left the party around 2 p.m. Wednesday, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Thursday.

According to Judd, Jazmine brought the older children — ages eight and six — into the house and told Joeal to bring the baby. Joel said that the car doors were open while he loaded some trays of food into the house, and then realized that the back door of the car was closed when he finished. He said that he thought Jazmine had taken the girl inside.

“He went inside and lay on the bed with his wife. Neither the husband nor the wife asked if the victim had been brought inside. They went to sleep,” according to the sheriff’s office news release.

At around 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, while getting ready for work, Joel asked one of the boys to go “check on the baby” in the bedroom, but the boy told Joel that the baby was not there. was there, according to the statement.

At that point, Joel began looking for the child, then went outside and looked in the car, which was parked in the driveway “in full sun,” according to the statement, before finding the child “still strapped in her pushchair and without reply”.

The couple took the girl to Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead.

The heat index that day was 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), Judd said Thursday. The girl’s internal body temperature was over 40 degrees Celsius, according to the sheriff’s office.

At around 7 p.m., after the baby was pronounced dead, Joel and Jazmine underwent a Department of Children and Families drug test, according to authorities. Joel tested positive for methamphetamine, marijuana, and alcohol; and Jazmine tested positive for marijuana and alcohol, according to the sheriff’s news release.

An autopsy determined the girl’s manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was hyperthermia “due to being left in a car,” according to the sheriff.

Both Jazmine and Joel have been charged with aggravated murder of a child, Judd said. They were taken into custody Thursday and booked into the Polk County Jail.

The couple’s other children have been placed with relatives, the sheriff said.

“This rips your heart out, there’s no other way to explain it,” Judd said.

“This is not an accident, this is pure negligence and I suggest to you that the core of the negligence is drug abuse and drug use,” he added.

‘s Emma Tucker contributed to this report.