Father Arrested After Infant Dies In Hot Van

5-Month-Old Died After Being Left In 92-Degree Heat

Sep 10, 2004 6:51 pm US/Pacific
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) Police on Friday arrested the father of a 5-month-old girl who died after she was left in a locked minivan on a 92-degree day.

John Michael Dunton, 42, of Anaheim was in custody on suspicion of child endangerment, police said.

Police Chief Paul Walters said investigators believe Dunton, a paralegal, may have forgotten about the baby.

"It doesn't mean that he intentionally had this occur," Walters said. "It just means through negligence he allowed it to occur and, therefore, it's criminal."

KCAL-TV reported that Dunton was placed on suicide watch in jail after he pleaded with a police officer to let him use his gun.

Police said Dunton had to be restrained then sedated at the hospital where the girl was taken Thursday afternoon.

Jasmine Dunton died on her way to Western Medical Center after her father summoned authorities to the van late Thursday afternoon. Police said the temperature inside the van was 103 degrees an hour after the child was removed.

Lt. Bill Tegeler said Dunton apparently spent the afternoon at work after overlooking the girl in the van.

Dunton is married, with a 6-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.

I want to see his blood work. What meds are on board? a sober person doesnt "forget" their kid in in the car with them.  

I find it amazing how often this shit happens.  I just don't see how people could be so f'ing stupid.

We just had a baby die here last week after its mother forgot to take it to daycare and went to work leaving the infant in the car to cook.

Quoted: For some inexplicable reason this happens with enough frequency that it's certainly mystifying. And, as with parents who fail to buckle up their children in autos, CRIMINAL PROSECUTION is idiotic! If there are sound reasons for suspecting that this father 'forgot' his daughter, then 'Book 'em Danno', but there is no reason to add to this father's anquish any more by filing criminal charges against him. That's the 'Soccer Mom' View of the Law: 'If there's a tragedy, someone MUST be to blame!' There are things that happen in this world that we simply do not understand. Put the cuffs away, and allow the father and the family grieve in peace. Eric The(Sympathetic)Hun

You know this problem happens here in AZ more than anywhere else, and there was tremendous resistance to charging these people for just this reason.   In the end the mounting death toll swung everyones opinion, same with all the drownings.

Quoted: For some inexplicable reason this happens with enough frequency that it's certainly mystifying.

I'm not at all mystified. Ive seen enough of these to say that in the majority of the cases drugs or alcohol are involved. Very often it's the parent leaving the child in the car while he/she goes to pick up drugs. Once inside, he/she decides to use there. He/she either passess out, or just gets caught up in the situation, and completely forgets about the child outside due to the intoxicated state.

anyone with kids will tell you that "i would never let something that stupid happen to my child"

yet, when i go over to their house on nights where they were up all night with the kids, work, etc. I could easily see one of the kids dozing off while they sped to work for an important meeting- cooly forgetting to drop the kid off at the babysitter.

there are people out there who juggle 2 jobs with 5 kids and are struggling to make ends meet. sure, it seems bizarre to many, but in a world where more and more folks are working increasing hours, its bound to happen sooner or later.

Quoted: I find it amazing how often this shit happens.  I just don't see how people could be so f'ing stupid.

You said it, brutha...how the FUCK do you forget about your CHILD???

Quoted: So, do you think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law?

Yes, for several reasons.

1. to discourage simular behavior from other parents/serve as example to others.
2. to punish him.
3. to protect his surviving 6 year old child.  

Quoted: Drugged and drunk parents are not mystifying, but the case that you posted does not seem to be one of those sorts of cases, does it? The father apparently went beserk at the hospital, didn't he? Or was that an act? So, do you think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Lord, how the law has been changed in the last 50 years! And NOT for the better. Not at all. Eric The(StillSympathetic)Hun

No way to tell without a tox screen.

Just because he is a white paralegal and was not obviously intoxicated when the police found him doesn't meen he hadn't been keeping a buzz on the night before.  Officers can only test for alcohol at the scene.

But workaholics can forget their children as easily as drug abusers.  Either way NOT charging people was NOT helping the situation.  So we are going to try charging people for a while.

I'm not about to offer an excuse for this guy, nor anyone else this happens to, but I will say it CAN happen, and you DON'T have to be some miscreant to have it happen to you.

This happened to me one day with my then-less-than-one-year-old daughter (who is sitting on my lap as I type this). I went to the store with my FIL and her in back. We went in for about 15 minutes, and I didn't realize it until I popped the trunk to put the groceries in and heard her crying from inside the passenger compartment.

I can only thank God that it was early morning in the Florida Keys, in a month where it wasn't all that hot. She was absolutely fine, which is more than I can say for me.

My FIL holds to this day that he didn't know she was in the car. Whatever. It was MY responsibility either way.

I think that is the lowpoint of my entire life; that I actually forgot my daughter in the car. As such, every time a story like this comes out, I relive that horrible moment all over again. I figure it's going to be my punishment for having been so lax, and I thank God every time that my punishment is so light.

Beware people. Losing a kid (literally and figuratively) is far easier than you might think.....

BTW, my daughter wants to say hi....

ekfggghyuur6bjdsahhhi1234234567890ryfggfhgfffhhhjnbvcxztodmnhbbbbbbhghgsdfdrrrrrrsddddfdffg jkg                 huhhbbcc vasabftyttabzefghinmnopq

She's only four, so you have to be able to read "baby type"....

Coming from a state where this happens no less than three times a summer; I believe it is poignantly obvious that we must ban automobiles.  It's for the children.

 Considering how busy and stressed out folks are these days I can understand how this can happen.  In one of our local parpers a lady in the "Vent" column said that she always puts her purse in seat next to her baby....( and I love this part ) so that she NEVER FORGETS HER PURSE.

 Seriously though, it's a good idea....and if your a guy.....well, put your copy of Guns and Ammo back there.....SO YOU DON'T FORGET IT WHEN YOU GET THE BABY!!!!

Quoted: Coming from a state where this happens no less than three times a summer; I believe it is poignantly obvious that we must ban automobiles.  It's for the children.

Ban the sun, too...it's responsible for all this...

Quoted: Quoted: Coming from a state where this happens no less than three times a summer; I believe it is poignantly obvious that we must ban automobiles.  It's for the children. Ban the sun, too...it's responsible for all this...

Its happened three times in the last six DAYS here.  Two dead, one clingnig to life.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Coming from a state where this happens no less than three times a summer; I believe it is poignantly obvious that we must ban automobiles.  It's for the children. Ban the sun, too...it's responsible for all this... Its happened three times in the last six DAYS here.  Two dead, one clingnig to life.

 HOLY SHIT!!! Where's Feinstein when ya need her????  Oh, that's right, she off depriving us of our God Given Civil Liberties.

Quoted: So, do you think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Yes, for several reasons. 1. to discourage simular behavior from other parents/serve as example to others. 2. to punish him. 3. to protect his surviving 6 year old child.

Then again if you weren't slamming someone in the nuts you wouldn't have a job.

While I could never forget one of my children in the car, I don't see how this protects his 6 year old.???   Are you on some kinda freakish Kalifornicated wave length the rest of us should know about.  

While I agree he needs to be made an example of and punished.....I don't see your analogy on #3.   I guess he should be locked away forever so as to never have contact with his 6 year old....therefore protecting her.....right.........

Quoted: Quoted: Coming from a state where this happens no less than three times a summer; I believe it is poignantly obvious that we must ban automobiles.  It's for the children. Good idea but how about first we try installing a sensor system that links to a chip embbed into the baby's neck - Bluetooth could be used - the sensor would monitor the babies health at all times. A second sensor would monitor the driver's seat. Once the seat was empty and the baby was detected inside the car a timer would start. After a set amount of time the horn would honk lightly on and off as a reminder. If the sensor ever detected the baby was in heat destress the car would roll down the windows or start the air conditioner or heater as required and blare the horn. $1500 option available on your Caddy or Lexus - and an additional $2500 to wire each child up with the chip.

Because that would be putting the mark of the beast on your child... and the goverment could track the signal... and having grown up with it you child would not have any objection when the .gov came to them as adults and said they wanted to do the same thing "for their own protection"...

This is a direct result of the nanny state saying that you can't put your child in the front seat of your car.  This NEVER happened until the laws were passed saying your child had to be in the back seat and out of sight and out of mind.  The father is an idiot, but this happens quite frequently now that those laws are in place.

How about a simple tether, like those coiled up key chains that go around your wrist only longer? Put the kid in the car and lay the tether on your seat. Then when you get in put it on your wrist.
I dont think that guy needs jail time, he has sentenced himself to his own private hell.

Quoted: This is a direct result of the nanny state saying that you can't put your child in the front seat of your car.  This NEVER happened until the laws were passed saying your child had to be in the back seat and out of sight and out of mind.  The father is an idiot, but this happens quite frequently now that those laws are in place.

Nanny state nothing, it is a physical FACT that airbags will injure a child.

Please put your kid there if you want, so we will be rid of your ignorance....

Quoted: Quoted: This is a direct result of the nanny state saying that you can't put your child in the front seat of your car.  This NEVER happened until the laws were passed saying your child had to be in the back seat and out of sight and out of mind.  The father is an idiot, but this happens quite frequently now that those laws are in place. Nanny state nothing, it is a physical FACT that airbags will injure a child. Please put your kid there if you want, so we will be rid of your ignorance....

+1. Airbags kill. A proven fact. Also, if your so stupid to forget your kids in the car, then you don't deserve to be walking the streets either. Lock em up and throw away the key.

Quoted: Quoted: This is a direct result of the nanny state saying that you can't put your child in the front seat of your car.  This NEVER happened until the laws were passed saying your child had to be in the back seat and out of sight and out of mind.  The father is an idiot, but this happens quite frequently now that those laws are in place. Nanny state nothing, it is a physical FACT that airbags will injure a child. Please put your kid there if you want, so we will be rid of your ignorance....

According to the insurance companies (who should know) there has never been a properly restrained child (not in a rear facing seat) injured by an air bag.  (my dad is in the business)  So you are the ignorant one believing what the idiots who had the air bags put in the cars to begin with.  By the way, my child always rode in the front seat, is now 14, is uninjured, and (like her father) scores in the genius level of IQs.  

"Accidentally" kiling your child this way is also a convienent method of retroactive abortion to get rid of a unwanted hastle.

Its simply become too common in Arizona, something had to be done, just like the drownings, up to about one a week.

Its not like you to not demand personal responsibility Eric,

Just plain sad.  

Incarceration is pointless.  No parent is going to deliberately let their child die in a car, whether they can get away with it or not.

This guy has already been punished.

Quoted: Just plain sad.   Incarceration is pointless.  No parent is going to deliberately let their child die in a car, whether they can get away with it or not. This guy has already been punished.

That was long the argument against doing it here, but when it became a monthly occurance, minds changed.

Quoted: Quoted: So, do you think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Yes, for several reasons. 1. to discourage simular behavior from other parents/serve as example to others. 2. to punish him. 3. to protect his surviving 6 year old child.   Then again if you weren't slamming someone in the nuts you wouldn't have a job. While I could never forget one of my children in the car, I don't see how this protects his 6 year old.???

Because her father is an irresponsible loser who already killed one of his kids by leaving her in a hot car. You cannot possibly over estimate his stupidity.  He has shown the ability to kill his other children through his extreme negligence. Lock Dad up until his minor children are old enough to protect themselves. When the surviving children are teenagesrs their fathers negligence wont be as big of a danger to them.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: So, do you think he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Yes, for several reasons. First, there is NO reason to believe, from the article, that this was the situation that you found so repehensible above, the drunk or drugged parent case, right? Second, you think that our limited and strained to the max, criminal justice system should be cranked up to turn this family's life even more upside down than it already is? You think they don't have enough violent crime in this jurisdiction to prosecute already, that they have to bring the full weight of the State down on this poor soul's head. Oh, and his surviving family's head, as well? I think not. Let it go. As in so many such cases, the CRIME is the PUNISHMENT! 1. to discourage simular behavior from other parents/serve as example to others. If 'other parents' haven't learned enough to correct their behavior from the countless stories of this happening to others, surely the fact of prosecution would not make them change their ways. The stories, while not rampant, are sufficiently common that every large city has had one of two examples, and those examples have, like this one, been much publicized! What more can parents 'learn' about this? 2. to punish him. You really think that this father has not been punished sufficiently already for whatever crime he may have committed? Really? Well, if that's true, I think that the State is getting into an area that may reasonably be called 'cruel and unusual punishment' when it takes the father away from his surviving members at a time when those surviving members may need him the most! And how much money will be lost for the surviving child and his mother when the father pays for his defense, and later, when he is lanquishing in prison. Are you really certain that this added tragedy needs to be placed on this grieving family's back? 3. to protect his surviving 6 year old child.   That is totally absurd. If the death of a young child is not punishment enough, if the loss is not sufficient enough, if the family's resources are not strained enough, to deter any future similar conduct, then no prison sentence would do the job either.

The prison sentence should be severe enough that every parent reconsiders even leaving their child in the car for ten seconds to put something in the mailbox.  In MOST of these cases the parent deliberately left the child in the car, expecting to come right back in a few seconds or minutes, and then got side tracked with fatal results.

Mom unquestioned in baby's heat death



2 cases in month handled differently

Lindsey Collom
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 11, 2004 12:00 AM


Two mothers grieved for their infants who died a month apart from heat stroke after being left in sweltering vehicles.

Kim Crawford, 27, of Mesa, mourned Friday with family. Vanesselt Raban, 29, of Phoenix, did so in a jail cell after her infant's death in August.

Police say one difference is that Crawford had no other children. Raban had five; the youngest, a 7-month-old boy, died Aug. 10.

"We don't believe there's a public safety risk here," said Sgt. Randy Force of Phoenix police. "This woman (Crawford) has no other children that need to be protected."

Her only child died early Friday.

Four-month-old Jordan Crawford was left in a minivan parked outside an office building for three hours Thursday. Her mother forgot to drop her at day care, and by the time she remembered, it was 102 degrees outside and about 140 degrees in the vehicle.

Crawford rushed to retrieve the baby girl, whose temperature was 109 degrees. She was flown to Maricopa Medical Center, and succumbed to hyperthermia at 2:40 a.m. Friday.

Investigators have yet to get a statement from Crawford because they want to be compassionate to her situation, Force said.

He could not speak about how detectives handled the Raban case.

Vanesselt Raban was arrested when her infant died.

Raban put her 10-year-old son in charge of taking his baby brother, Quentan, out of the family van after she picked up her kids from school Aug. 10. Police say she played on the computer for at least an hour until she realized the boy was not in the house.

Quentan had a temperature of 108 degrees. He died at Maryvale Hospital later that afternoon.

Detective Tony Morales of Phoenix police called it "gross negligence." Force said that, for Crawford, it was "one morning lapse."

Both cases remain under investigation. More than a dozen children in Arizona have died of hyperthermia in vehicles since 1988, according to the national non-profit group Kids and Cars. Parents were arrested in four of those cases.

On Friday, a Scottsdale woman who also left her toddler in a car this week was hauled into court but will not have to attend a funeral. Scottsdale police Detective Sam Bailey said Pam Logan, 34, dined in a restaurant in the 15000 block of North Pima Road on Thursday evening, and asked other patrons to check on her 1 ½-year-old daughter.

Police found the girl unharmed in a vehicle with the windows down. Bailey said Logan faces charges of endangerment and neglect. Child Protective Services was contacted and the child was placed in her grandmother's custody.

Marc Budoff, a Phoenix defense attorney and former Maricopa County prosecutor, said the decision to charge a parent in this sort of case is both "difficult and terrible."

"One thing that seems to stick in my mind is if it was clearly an unintended accident and the parent wasn't occupied with something unusual, like going to a casino or a bar, I have a difficult time seeing what purpose is served by prosecution," Budoff said.

Quoted: We just had a baby die here last week after its mother forgot to take it to daycare and went to work leaving the infant in the car to cook.

Then we had another one yesterday

Another Valley Baby Left In Hot Car    
09-11-2004 12:35 AM

(Scottsdale, AZ) -- Less than a day after a baby died because she was left in a hot car, another Valley woman is accused of doing the same thing. Police say the difference is 37-year-old Pam Logan knew her one-and-a-half-year-old son was in the car. Police say Logan was inside a Scottsdale restaurant early Thursday night having dinner and actually asked patrons as they were leaving to check on her son. They called police after becoming concerned. The child is okay and Logan has been charged with child neglect and child endangerment.

All I know is that I was VERY quiet the rest of that weekend. I am convinced that if anything had happened to my little girl, I wouldn't have needed a prison; I would have needed an assylum.

The fact is that the child is the inescapable responsibility of the parent. You can point at airbags, car seats, or anything else, and it STILL boils down to the fact that the parent needs only to REMEMBER that their kid is in there.

As for punishments, I believe that the criminal penalties should be severe if there are going to be any, but I don't think ANYTHING will be worse than simply letting them live their lives knowing that their stupidity killed their child.

I still shudder when I remember.....

Quoted: children are much more likely to drown in a pool unattened in their own back yard as to die from heatstroke in a locked and unattended vehicle.

What both of those causes of death in children have in common is parental irresponsibility. Leaving your child to die in a hot car, letting her drown in a swimming pool, or letting her play with a straight razor are all the same thing IMO. Criminal negligence.

BTW; Yes Eric, we do prosecute parents who let their kids drown in swimming pools. Call us progressive, if you do something either through negligence or an overt act that results in injury to your child, you will be arrested and charged with child endangerment/child neglect, at least.