Inset left: Camerone Leichman (Rockwall Police Dept.). Inset right: Rymedi Worth (GoFundMe). Background: Rockwall Heath High School (Google Maps).
A 36-year-old man in Texas has been arrested after he allegedly left a 6-month-old child in his care inside of a hot car all day where she died as her body temperature rose as high as 107 degrees.
Camerone Leichman was taken into custody this week and charged with one count of injury to a child resulting in serious bodily injury or death, records reviewed by Law&Crime show. The charge is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in a state correctional facility and a maximum fine of $10,000.
Emergency medical personnel and officers with the Rockwall Police Department at about 4:40 p.m. on Tuesday responded to a call about an unresponsive infant in a car in the parking lot of Rockwall-Heath High School in the 800 block of Laurence Drive, Dallas Fox affiliate KDFW reported. The school is about 25 miles northeast of Dallas.
“The caller reported an unresponsive 6-month-old female infant in a car seat in the back right passenger compartment,” police wrote in the affidavit.
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After medics removed the victim from the vehicle, they “took the infant”s temperature and it was 107,” the document states. The medical personnel said they did not even attempt any lifesaving procedures on the infant “as she was obviously deceased.”
Investigators initially said they were unsure as to how long the child had been left unattended in the car.
Court documents obtained by Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA provided additional details about the alleged circumstances of the infant’s death.
According to the report, Leichman, who had recently become the child’s legal caregiver, had driven his wife, a teacher, to work at Rockwall-Heath High School at about 8:15 a.m. that morning with the infant in the backseat. After dropping off his wife, Leichman was supposed to take the infant to day care, but he allegedly forgot.
Rather than going to the child’s day care, Leichman drove home where he allegedly went inside, leaving the infant in the car while it was parked outside all day. It was not until Leichman drove the car back to the high school to pick up his wife that she spotted the child and called 911.
The child was dead by the time medics arrived on the scene.
WFAA further reported that the victim’s name was Rymedi Worth and Leichman was her step-grandfather.
A GoFundMe page started for the victim’s funeral expenses said she “tragically lost her life in an unimaginable and heartbreaking accident.”
“Rymedi — whom we lovingly called Rym — was the most precious baby you could ever meet. Always smiling, always moving, always lighting up the room with her presence. She was a joyful, laughing, active baby — truly one of a kind,” the page states. “We are devastated knowing we will never get to see her crawl, hear her first words, or celebrate her first birthday. We will never watch her take her first steps, go to her first day of school, or grow into the amazing person we know she would have become. Our hearts are shattered beyond repair.”
Leichman was booked into the Rockwall County Detention Center where he remained as of Thursday in lieu of $500,000 bond, jail records show.
