A 2-year-old girl named Cecilia Slaby was found dead inside her mother's parked car in the Glen Este Middle School parking lot Aug. 23.
Slaby had been left in a silver Mercedes-Benz SUV vehicle by her mother, Glen Este Middle School Assistant Principal Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby, while she attended an in-service day for school staff and administration to prepare for the first day of school Aug. 23.
"She was engaged in school work all day," said West Clermont School District Superintendent Gary Brooks.
It was eight hours before the girl was found in the back of the car, strapped into a car seat, with the windows up. Brenda Slaby rushed to her car after the toddler was spotted around 3 p.m. She held her daughter while a teacher, receiving assistance from a 911 operator, futilely tried reviving the child with CPR.
Brenda Slaby had to be rushed to a hospital after the girl's body was found and revival efforts failed; she was released later that evening.
Union Township police are unsure at this time how the girl came to be left inside the car, but Clermont County prosecutor Don White said that he is certain that whatever happened was most probably an accident.
Clermont County Coroner Dr. Brian Treon performed an autopsy on the girl Aug. 24 and determined that the cause of death was heart-related systemic hyperthermia.
According to the National Weather Service, the temperature last Thursday hit a record 100 degrees.
Brooks said that Slaby is on indefinite paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation.
That investigation continues and the prosecutor's office will announce whether or not criminal charges will be filed against Brenda Slaby on Aug. 29.
Reader Comments Posted: Saturday, September 08, 2007
Article comment by:
Connie Anderson
This is awful. To think what that little girl suffered, sitting there in the heat, cooking!!!
Posted: Friday, September 07, 2007
Article comment by:
Alison Walls
Personally being the mother of three beautiful little girls I can not figure out how a mother could forget her child in the backseat of a car. I think that this woman needs to be punished. To think what that little girl went through is just an unspeakabble act of neglect.
Posted: Thursday, September 06, 2007
Article comment by:
Mike Murley
Words fail me over the miscarriage of justice. Your District Attorney's prosecutorial misconduct in this case is equivalent to Mr. Nifong's in the Duke "rape" allegations, in a perverse mirror.
Mrs Slaby caused her daughter's death through either a level of negligence that is mind-boggling or through calculated, deliberate infanticide. Her previous actions (leaving her child unattended in her automobile on other occasions) add more disbelief to DA White's casual attitude to retroactive abortion. Your county is shamed by this entire sordid affair.
Mrs. Slaby has no business holding the public trust in any way shape or manner. Your school board is craven for not having dismissed this woman immediately. Certainly she should never be allowed near children again.
One can only hope that a Federal civil rights case is pursued on behalf of the poor child, either criminally or civilly.
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