Welcome to Arrest Stories. A Dallas mother faces murder charges after police say she intentionally left her fifteen-month-old child in a sweltering car without air conditioning for over two hours, leading to the toddler's tragic death. Here's what may have happened.
On August twentieth, twenty-seven-year-old Vanessa Esquivel was arrested in connection with her child's death that occurred four days earlier. The devastating incident unfolded on Saturday, August sixteenth, when temperatures soared to at least ninety-five degrees across the Dallas area.
According to investigators, Esquivel arrived at her workplace in the thirty-two hundred block of Preston Road at approximately two o'clock that afternoon. Police allege she made a fatal decision that would change everything. Detectives believe Esquivel intentionally left her fifteen-month-old child for over two hours in a vehicle she knew did not have working air conditioning with an outside temperature of at least ninety-five degrees.
The timeline becomes critical here. While Esquivel went about her work duties, her toddler remained trapped in the increasingly dangerous vehicle. Without functioning air conditioning and with the brutal Texas heat beating down, the car became a death trap.
Later that afternoon, police responded to Medical City Plano to investigate the infant's death. Officers had been alerted by local police about the tragic situation that had unfolded in nearby Frisco.
The investigation moved swiftly. Police called the toddler's death intentional, stating there was probable cause that Esquivel intentionally left the child in the car, which injured and endangered the child. That's a felony. But because the child died, police said Esquivel's actions met the statutory regulation of murder.
Esquivel now faces first-degree felony murder charges, which carry a punishment ranging from five years to life in prison, plus fines up to ten thousand dollars. Her bond was set at two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.