A court has sentenced a 39-year-old woman to seven years ’imprisonment in Australia after her toddler died while she was left alone in a hot car for five hours.
Laura Rose Peverill was convicted in connection to the death of her three-year-old daughter in November 2020.
According to ABC, Rylee Rose Black was left alone in the back seat of a locked car for more than five hours in the middle of the day while temperatures reached 51.5 degrees Celsius (124.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The toddler was found unresponsive inside the back of a Toyota Prado and deemed “not survivable,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutor David Nardone said the temperatures would have caused “suffering up to the point of coma, and then death,” news.com.au reported.
Peverill admitted in April 2023 that she was watching Netflix with her boyfriend at the time of the incident. She had allegedly parked the car in a shadeless driveway and removed the groceries, but not Rylee.
According to court documents, it wasn’t until Peverill went to pick up her other children from school that she discovered Rylee covered in vomit and slumped in her seat. Rylee was rushed to the hospital but died of heat stroke or thermoregulatory failure, with a body temperature of 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit), officials said.
At the hospital, police officials and nurses allegedly told family members Rylee was in “no state to be seen,” the Townsville Bulletin reported.
Peverill’s defense attorney, Victoria Trafford-Walker, said Peverill had suffered from mental health and alcohol issues for several years. Despite her omission of care, she had “no intention to harm Rylee in any way.”
She also told the court that Peverill received more than 200 abusive messages, including death threats, from strangers online after the incident.
Peverill pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Queensland Supreme Court in Townsville in April. Her boyfriend at the time, Aaron Danyel Hill, was also charged with manslaughter, 7 News reported.
She was sentenced to seven years in jail on Friday, Oct. 6 but will be eligible for parole on July 3, 2025.
