Three-month-old girl left in SUV dies

A 3-month-old Chandler girl left in a sweltering sport utility vehicle for an hour and 45 minutes Thursday died Friday, prompting police to launch an investigation into the death.

Amberlee Elizabeth Brown died about 9:40 a.m. at a local hospital, Chandler police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said.

Amberlee is the first child in Arizona to die this year after being left in a vehicle and the 11th to die nationwide, said Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Francisco State University.

In 2006, there were at least 29 deaths including one in Tucson, Null said.

About once daily, the Chandler Fire Department gets a call about a child left in a vehicle, but this is the first death that fire department spokesman Dan Couch said he can recall in his 30-year career.

Police officers and firefighters responded to the 2900 block of West Straford Drive, near Price and Elliott roads in Chandler, around 3:15 p.m., after the baby’s family found her inside the Honda SUV and called 911. The infant had a core body temperature of 109 degrees.

Police said the baby’s father had taken her with him to run errands. But when he returned, he went inside and forgot the child was in a car seat in the back of the vehicle. Amberlee was rushed to the hospital, where she was listed in very critical condition until her death Friday morning.

Weather officials said the temperature in Chandler was 108 degrees as the Honda sat in the sun in the home’s driveway.

An American Physical Society study found that temperatures inside a car can reach 150 degrees on a sunny day if the outside temperature exceeds 100 degrees.

Amberlee’s parents, Kyle and Elizabeth Brown, both 30, did not want to comment. Amberlee was one of five children.

Chandler police took the SUV to the police department Thursday night to examine it and are still investigating the case, Griner said. An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of Amberlee’s death. A report will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review, he said.

A county attorney’s office spokesman said he couldn’t make statements about how the office determines whether to prosecute in such cases.

Amberlee’s death came as a trial approaches in the case of another East Valley child who died after being left behind in a hot vehicle.

Babysitter Gisele Julia Wetzel, 37, of Mesa has a September trial date in Maricopa County Superior Court, according to Mesa police. Nearly four years ago, 16-month-old Taylin E. Lee died after being left for about an hour in Wetzel’s van. Wetzel faces felony charges of manslaughter and child abuse.

She was arrested and charged in 2004 after a medical examiner ruled that Taylin died of hyperthermia after being forgotten in her car seat during a day care outing on July 30, 2003.

Wetzel was running a day care center at her Mesa home and had taken Taylin, her own children and four other day care children to a park.

In another child death in early 2005, the county attorney’s office declined to prosecute in a case where a woman forgot her 4-month-old baby in a van for more than three hours in Ahwatukee Foothills, according to Phoenix police. The temperature in the van was 140 degrees.

Authorities urge parents, babysitters and guardians to take measures to ensure that they know where children are at all times. Couch said parents should walk around their vehicles to see who could still be inside them before going into a store or house. Griner said parents and guardians should conduct a head count and not get preoccupied.