A Florida dad was arrested this week and charged with manslaughter and child neglect after he left his 18-month-old son in his vehicle while he got a haircut and stopped into a bar for drinks.
The toddler died after being left in the back seat for hours on June 6, with his body temperature reaching 111 degrees, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said in announcing the arrest of 33-year-old Scott Allen Gardner.
Chitwood said that Gardner got a haircut and then went to Hanky Panky’s Lounge in Ormond Beach. When he left the bar he found his son, Sebastian, dead. He did not call 911, however. Instead he drove to his mother’s home and called for help.
Investigators say the boy had been dead for at least an hour when help arrived.
Deputies say Gardner lowered the windows in the truck and left a small portable fan on, but its air did not reach the child.
After the child’s death, Gardner and his mother went back to Hanky Panky’s Lounge for more drinks, where they stayed until almost midnight.
“This father is a human piece of garbage, and he’s a lying sack of s***,” said Chitwood. ” … My hope for him is every night that he closes his eyes and every morning when he opens his eyes, his son Sebastian sits there and says, ‘Dad, why did you do this to me?’ There is no reason for this little boy to be dead.”
Investigators determined that Gardner arrived to get his haircut at 11:30 a.m., then went to the lounge across the street a half hour later, Chitwood said. In the course of his afternoon of drinks, someone hit the bartender’s car outside, and Gardner went out to check on that car but did not check on his son. He left the bar at about 2:40 p.m. and drove home.
Emergency responders were unable to perform CPR on the baby because he was already in rigor mortis, the sheriff said.
“I don’t think there’s a penalty on this earth that fits this crime,” he said.
Deputies painstakingly reviewed surveillance video and interviewed witnesses before arresting Gardner on Thursday at his mother’s home. He appeared before a judge on Friday and was ordered held without bond, WESH reported.
The Ormond Beach Police officer who initially responded to the emergency call made the arrest on Thursday.
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[Featured image: Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Inset: Sebastian Gardner/handout]
