American mum jailed for 40 years after leaving her two toddlers to die in sweltering car

December 17, 2018

A teenage mum has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after she left her two toddlers in a 48 degree car for 15 hours while she smoked marijuana and partied with friends.

Her two little girls, Addyson Overgard-Eddy, 2 and Brynn Hawkins, 1, were found in a serious condition and close to death.

Amanda Hawkins, from Texas, pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless injury to a child and two counts of abandoning or endangering a child.

In September she admitted to leaving her kids in the car to die.

According to the Hill Country Breaking News, Hawkins had left them in a vehicle all night after smoking marijuana with several people inside of a shed — even taking her youngest child into a shed where multiple people were smoking marijuana, before putting her back in the vehicle.

She didn’t take the girls to hospital straight away because she “didn’t want to go to jail”, she said.

She ran cold water on them in a bathtub before taking them to a medical centre two hours later. They were transferred to University Hospital in San Antonio, where Dr John Gebhart tried to save their lives over the next 40 hours, according to The Sun.

He told the court the little girls most likely went into “profound” shock while they were left in the hot car.

Dr Gebhart told the judge they most likely had very painful deaths with brain swelling having been the cause of death.

A 16-year-old boy, Kevin Franke, who had slept in the car with the girls and accompanied Hawkins to the hospital claimed he was unaware the girls were in the car while he was sleeping.

The now 18-year-old who was later arrested, pleaded not guilty in April to two counts of manslaughter, two counts of injury to a child and two counts of child endangerment.

He is due to appear in court in January next year.

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