Two children died of heat exposure Tuesday when they were left for five hours in a sport utility vehicle outside a day-care center in Lancaster as temperatures reached 100 degrees, authorities said.
The boys, 3 and 5, were the foster children of the day-care center's owner, Leslie Smoot, who at first told police that a miscommunication led to their being left in the Cadillac Escalade.
"She indicated she thought someone else would take them out of the vehicle," said Sheriff's Lt. Al Grotefend. Later, he said, "She indicated that she forgot to take them out of the car." He said that Smoot, 48, was "distraught, hysterical."
Emergency crews were called to A Child's Place at the corner of Fig and J avenues at 2 p.m. When they arrived, the children had been moved to a rear patio area of the center.
The older boy was dead. The younger one died half an hour later at Antelope Valley Medical Center, according to the Sheriff's Department.
Smoot told deputies that she and the boys had arrived at the center she runs with her husband about 9 a.m. She was unsure, she initially said, about whether she had thought her husband or an employee would bring the boys inside, Grotefend said. She returned to the car five hours later and discovered the bodies on the floor, he said. The older boy apparently had unstrapped the younger one from his car seat.
Smoot was taken to the sheriff's Lancaster station Tuesday night. Investigators were continuing to question her because of her conflicting explanations of the incident, Grotefend said. He said it was unclear whether she would face criminal charges, which could range from child endangerment to manslaughter.
Her biological child and another foster child were removed from her custody, Grotefend said.
Employees at the center would not talk about what had happened.
"We're dealing with a terrible tragedy here," said a woman who answered the telephone at the day-care center. "We're not giving stories to anybody."
Michelle Loar, a former neighbor who happened to be visiting a friend several doors away, said, "It's so preventable. ... It's just crazy to leave your kids in a car in the middle of summer."
Next-door neighbor Eldrin Waid, 67, described the owners of the day-care center as close friends and "real nice people" and said that they "take the kids out of the car every day the very first thing after they arrive."
