Authorities in Alabama have charged a child services worker in the July 22 death of a 3-year-old foster child who was left in a hot car.
As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, authorities initially said the child services worker had “forgotten” that the deceased victim Keterrious ‘KJ’ Starkes Jr. was in the vehicle.
The child services worker, identified as 54-year-old Kela Stanford, has since been charged with one count of leaving a child or an incapacitated person unattended in a motor vehicle resulting in serious physical injury, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said on Friday, per NBC News.
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Stanford faces between two and 20 years in prison if she’s found guilty. She was released from custody on Friday after she posted a $30,000 bond, jail records indicated.
The vehicle Keterrious was in at the time of his death was parked at the driveway of a private home. The engine was not on, and the windows had also not been rolled down, AL.com reported.
Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates said that Keterrious was left inside the vehicle between 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. He was later pronounced dead at the scene.
“At this time, the only thing that I can say is that we believe it [the child’s death] was accidental,” Police Sgt. Laquitta Wade told NBC News last week. Wade also said the contractor had “forgotten that the child was in the vehicle.”
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Brittney Debruce, who is Keterrious’ aunt, told AL.com that the deceased 3-year-old was in the custody of the Department of Human Resources and staying with a foster parent. She said that Keterrious was absent at his daycare when the foster parent arrived to pick him up.
Debruce said Keterrious was picked up by a transport driver likely working for a company the DHR had contracted to handle visitation transportation for children. She said the transportation driver, who is Stanford, had taken her nephew to the DHR in Bessemer to see his father for a scheduled visit.
But Keterrious was not taken back to the daycare after seeing his father, and authorities later found the minor unattended in the car.
The family’s attorney, Courtney French, also told AL.com that a DHR-affiliated worker, who took Keterrious to meet his biological father for a supervised visit, was an employee of The Covenant Services. The Stanford left the daycare with Keterrious at 9 a.m, and the supervised visit with the minor’s father lasted until around 11:30 a.m.
French said that Stanford subsequently went to grab food for her family before making her way to a tobacco store to shop. But the suspect left Keterrious alone in the car for several hours after she arrived home. “This is a heartbreaking and preventable tragedy,” French said.
“With the current extreme outside temperatures and the heat index of 108 degrees, the interior temperature of the car where KJ was trapped likely exceeded 150 degrees,” French added.
Debruce told NBC News that the contractor linked to her nephew’s death frequently took the minor to scheduled visits and dropped him off afterwards. She said there shouldn’t have been any issues as a result.
“So this isn’t her first time picking him up; this is what she does for her job,” Debruce said. “I truly believe in my heart, because I have met her several times and she has transferred kids a lot, I don’t think she killed my nephew intentionally,” she added. “But she made a mistake. We definitely want answers, and we won’t stop.”
