A Texas mother who left her two young children in a hot car to teach them a lesson has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday, April 30, according to officials.
Cynthia Randolph, 25, was found guilty of two counts of reckless injury to a child for the deaths of her 16-month-old son, Cavanaugh Ramirez, and 2-year-old daughter, Juliet Ramirez, reported WFAA.
Randolph was sentenced to 20 years in prison for each count, which will run concurrently, according to Parker County assistant district attorney Jeff Swain.
Her children were found dead in a locked car outside the family home near Lake Weatherford back in May 2017 after 4 p.m. on what was a 96-degree day.
She initially told police that her children had wandered off and disappeared for about 30 minutes. She said she later found them locked inside the car, reported Fox 4.
During the police investigation, Randolph’s story changed about what happened to the children. She eventually confessed to police that she found her children playing inside her car at around noon and ordered them out. When the 2-year-old toddler refused to exit the car, Randolph then closed the car door in order to teach her daughter a “lesson.”
She said she thought her children would be able to get out of the car when they were ready.
She then told investigators that she then went back into the house, smoked marijuana and fell asleep for two to three hours, reported the news station. She then told police that she later broke a car window to make it look like an accident.
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