28th child of year dies in hot car

PHOENIX — Prosecutors are deciding whether to file charges in the death of a 3-year-old boy brought on by heatstroke from being left in a car at a church parking lot, police say.

Courtney Arnold, a family friend, reportedly left 3-year-old Hayden Nelson in a hot car Saturday afternoon outside Abundant Life Church where she and the child's mother, Tiffani Nelson, were attending choir practice, according to a police statement released Monday.

Police said Nelson stayed at Arnold's house overnight with Hayden and his 8-year-old sister. Because Hayden's mother needed to arrive early for choir practice, Arnold agreed to bring the children, including her own 5-year-old daughter, at a later time.

Arnold, whom police identified as a 27-year-old woman, was reportedly running late when she pulled up to the church with the children in tow. All but Hayden exited the car, where heat built up for the next three hours as temperatures outside reached 96 degrees.

Members of the church helped Nelson look for Hayden after choir practice. He wasn't breathing when they found him, police said.

"It's just a really sad situation," said Ernest McCray, who knows the church's pastor and dropped by Saturday when he saw police vehicles outside the church.

The pastor told him what was going on. By then, Hayden had been taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he would die Sunday.

It was the 28th death so far this year of a child dying after being left in an enclosed vehicle, according to the nonprofit organization Kids And Cars, based in Leawood, Kan.

"I didn't think she intended at any moment to harm the child," McCray said about Arnold.

McCray said he could see plenty of reasons why it took so long for someone to realize the child had been left in the car, adding that he doesn't blame Nelson and imagines her grief is overwhelming.

"This is going to stay with her for the rest of her young life," he said.

On Monday afternoon, the Rev. Jarrett Maupin, a community and civil-rights advocate, and criminal defense lawyer Benjamin Taylor met with Nelson and Arnold.

Taylor had represented a Phoenix mother who knowingly left her two small children in a car in Scottsdale, Ariz., while she interviewed for a job earlier this year. Shanesha Taylor was charged with child abuse, but a judge said those charges will be dropped if she successfully completes a diversion program.

Maupin said Monday that members of the church who were concerned for Nelson and Arnold contacted him.

"I don't have any reason to doubt that this was an accident," Maupin said.