A south Georgia mother left her 3-year-old son home alone while she went to several businesses in town, the Georgia Burea of Investigation said Wednesday.
The boy was later found unresponsive and died July 28 after being locked inside a hot car parked at the family’s Reidsville home, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.
No details have been released regarding how Jakob Eli Camacho got inside the vehicle. But on Monday, the GBI arrested his mother, Jamie Lee Camacho, 24, and charged her with felony murder and cruelty to children in the second degree. She reported the boy missing at 7:13 p.m.
RELATED: Boy, 3, is the second Georgia child to die in a hot car this summer
NEW: Join the discussion at the AJC’s Crime & Safety Facebook group
“Further investigation found that Jamie Lee Camacho left the child alone at the residence while she went to several businesses in Reidsville,” the GBI said in an emailed statement. “The investigation is ongoing.”
By Tuesday, Jamie Camacho was out of the Tattnall County jail on $50,000 bond, Sheriff Kyle Sapp said. Jakob, born in Vidalia, lived his entire life in Reidsville and attended Tiny Tots Day Care, according to his online obituary. In addition to his parents, he is survived by a younger brother.
Jakob was the second child to die in a hot car in Georgia in six weeks. Since 1995, 34 children in Georgia have died in hot cars, and 33 have died this year across the U.S., according to the Kids and Cars organization.
In June, Dijanelle Fowler, 25, left her baby in the car for six hours while she was inside a hair salon, according to DeKalb County police. Skylar Fowler was found dead in an Emory University Hospital parking deck after her mother drove there and called 911, reporting that she herself was having a seizure, The AJC previously reported.
Dijanelle Fowler, a former high school and college basketball standout from South Carolina, told investigators different versions of what happened to her baby, according to court testimony. But Fowler told the baby’s father she’d left the baby in the car with the air conditioning on, but it had shut off.
Louis Williams II, an Air Force reservist who was deployed in the Middle East when his baby died, called police to report Fowler. She was being held without bond late Wednesday at the DeKalb jail.
About the Author
