Texas – In a heartbreaking case in Texas that has sparked outrage and renewed calls for awareness, a 36-year-old mother, identified as Gbemisola A., has been charged with felony murder after her 9-year-old daughter, identified as Oluwasikemi A., died from hyperthermia inside a locked car where she had been left for eight hours in 97-degree heat.
According to authorities, Gbemisola drove to her job around 6 a.m., bringing her daughter along. Instead of making other arrangements, the mother left the 9-year-old locked inside the parked vehicle in the parking lot. She told investigators the child had been left “with water and cracked windows,” and a window shade placed on the windshield, which, authorities believe, made it difficult for anyone nearby to see the girl inside.
The vehicle became a furnace over the hours that followed. With outdoor temperatures soaring to 97 degrees, the inside of the car likely surpassed lethal temperatures in under an hour, according to experts. It wasn’t until around 2 p.m., when Gbemisola’s shift ended, that she returned to the car and found her daughter unresponsive. Emergency responders were called, and CPR was attempted before the child was transported to a local hospital. Oluwasikemi was pronounced dead shortly afterward. A subsequent report by the medical examiner confirmed that her death was caused by hyperthermia—extreme heat-related illness—and ruled it a homicide.
The charges filed against Gbemisola fall under Texas’s felony murder statute, which allows for murder charges when someone dies during the commission of a felony, even if the death was unintentional. In this case, the underlying felony was the reckless endangerment of a child. While many hot car deaths involve infants or toddlers left behind unintentionally, experts say this case is different. J. Null, a meteorology professor and national expert on pediatric hot car deaths, explained that deaths involving older children and deliberate decisions to leave them inside vehicles account for a minority of cases—roughly 20%. “This isn’t a parent forgetting,” Null explained. “It’s someone knowingly leaving a child in a car. Not to do them harm, but while they go to work, go to a casino, or meet someone.”
Doctors emphasize that a child’s body heats up three to five times faster than an adult’s. According to health professionals, a core body temperature exceeding 104°F can cause brain and organ failure—and it can happen in minutes. Even with “cracked windows,” temperatures inside a parked vehicle can rise by 19 degrees in just 10 minutes. That means that by the time Gbemisola had completed even her first hour of work, her daughter’s life was already in danger.
Authorities have not released further information regarding a potential trial date, and it remains unclear whether Gbemisola has retained legal counsel. She was arrested and booked into the county jail. Meanwhile, public safety officials continue urging the public: never leave a child alone in a vehicle, not even for a minute. For Oluwasikemi, that one decision proved fatal. Her death joins the dozens of others recorded annually across the country, all preventable, all devastating.
