Hot Cars Kill Unwanted Adopted Children

Mary Parks and her husband, Jeff, had everything they wanted: a comfortable house in Blacksburg, Virginia; well-paying jobs (Parks was an accountant, Jeff a research scientist); and two darling boys adopted as babies from Guatemala. The end of August and start of September 2007 had been stressful, though. Twenty-three-month-old Juan and his 4-year-old brother, Byron, had both been sick on and off. Parks' days had been blurs of work, day care, doctors, business trips, visits with relatives, and anxiety. On September 7, after attending to a feverish Byron the night before, she left him home to recuperate with Jeff. Her plan was to drive Juan to day care on her way to work.
Rarely had Parks taken just one boy to day care. Rarely had she gone to work at all if one boy was sick -- but this time she and Jeff agreed to swap roles. Moments after she started driving, Parks says, she realized Juan had fallen asleep. It was the last time that morning that she would remember he was in the car. "We were no longer taking anything of his to day care -- we were beyond diaper bags," she says. So there was no baby gear in the front seat to remind her. She caught no glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, either; in his car seat, Juan was too short to spot easily. Most important, perhaps, Byron wasn't there, chattering away. "He never fell asleep in the car," Parks explains.

Instead of stopping at the day care center, she drove right to work. Parks grabbed her purse from the front seat, went into her office, and had "a normal day." Talked with her supervisor. Ate lunch at her desk. Called Jeff to see how Byron was doing. She even remembers telling colleagues that -- since Juan had been sick, too -- she might have to leave early if a call came from day care to get him. In her mind, that's exactly where he was.
After work, Parks drove to the supermarket, shopped for dinner, and continued on to the day care center to pick Juan up -- unaware that he was already sitting right behind her. When she arrived, his teacher asked, "Was Juan out sick today?"
"No," said Parks. "I brought him this morning."
"He wasn't here today," the teacher said.
Within moments, Parks recalls, "a light in my head went on. I took off running toward the car. My heart was already in my feet because I knew how hot it had been that day. I got to the car, jerked open the door, and saw him. I reached over to him. I remember screaming at him, 'Juan! Juan! You've got to wake up!'" Cradling her son's body -- stiff and still as a baby doll's -- Parks ran inside the day care office. One staffer tried desperately to revive Juan with CPR; another called 911. "I went in crying for help," Parks says, "but I knew he was dead."

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Moscow has banned three international adoption agencies after a young Russian boy died in the U.S. Two-year-old Dmitry Yakovlev died when his new father left him in a car in hot sun for several hours. The temperature inside the vehicle had reached 50C.
The case has again raised questions in Russia over the already disputed issue of foreign adoption.
On Tuesday, adoptive father Miles Harrison left the child in a car in a car-park while he disappeared for much of the day. With the temperature outside reaching at least 30C, it became stiflingly hot inside the locked car and the boy died.
Harrison was taken to a medical facility in shock and later taken into custody. On Wednesday he was charged with manslaughter and could face up to ten years in prison.
In recent years, there have been more than ten cases of Russian adopted children dying from parental negligence or abuse in the U.S. alone. Following this death three agencies have been banned from operating in Russia.