Baby forgotten in car - diesFollow

Oh, chill. He's at Hooters having hot wings and lots and LOTS of milk.

Mom booked after toddler dies; 7 hours in car while she worked
the Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.01.2007
PHOENIX — A woman whose 17-month-old son died in her hot car while she worked a seven-hour shift as a waitress told friends and family she was unhappy about being a mother, police said Wednesday.

People close to Ashly Duchene, 22, told investigators that she made statements over the past few weeks that she thought parental responsibilities encroached on her freedom.

"Caring for a child was not a top priority. It may or may not have played a role (in her son's death)," police Sgt. Joel Tranter said.
Duchene was booked Wednesday into the Maricopa County jail on a felony count of negligent homicide. Authorities do not believe Duchene intentionally left the boy in the car.

"At this point, we have not substantiated anything that shows she deliberately left the child in the car," Tranter said. "Otherwise it would be a regular homicide. We don't believe that's the case."

Duchene usually dropped the boy off at a day-care center on her way to work, but for unknown reasons failed to do so Tuesday, Tranter said.
Instead, she left her son, Ryan Gallagher, in the car when she arrived at the north Phoenix Hooters restaurant where she works at about 10 a.m., police said. The child was dead when she returned after her shift at nearly 5 p.m.

Authorities said Duchene was hysterical and immediately summoned help.

Efforts to revive the boy by witnesses, officers and firefighters were unsuccessful. Temperatures hit nearly 90 degrees Tuesday, but it would have been more than 100 degrees inside the car, Tranter said.

Officials believe the boy, who was in a car seat, was invisible to people going in and out of the restaurant and a nearby carwash because the car has tinted windows.

Duchene told police she walked to her car, unlocked the driver's door, sat in the vehicle and immediately realized she had forgotten Ryan in the back seat.
A request to interview Duchene was not immediately answered by police. The Associated Press placed a call Wednesday to a phone number believed to have belonged to Duchene, but it was no longer working.

Duchene said the boy had recently spent a few weeks out of town with his grandfather and that she had gotten out of the habit of dropping him off before work, according to a probable-cause statement released by the court Wednesday.

One factor that led to the negligence charge was that Duchene said she remembered glancing at her son in the rear-view mirror on her way to work that same day, and that Ryan "was smiling at her and happy," according to the probable-cause statement.

The document said Duchene told investigators that she also forgot Ryan was in her car the day before he died but remembered him when she arrived at work.
Later that same day, Duchene complained to the boy's father, Clayton Gallagher, that she "couldn't do it anymore" and that all Ryan did was cry. When Gallagher offered to take Ryan, Duchene declined, saying she needed to see her son every day.

No one answered a call placed Wednesday to a number believed to belong to Gallagher.