Michael Thedford was charged with manslaughter and booked into the Collin County jail and released later in the day on a $20,000 bond, according to Fox News.
The full story is rather grim and disturbing. According to the warrant issued against him, Thedford told investigators he took his five-year-old and three-year-old children to a daycare center at 9 a.m. Tuesday. He stated the youngest child, named Fern, according to the grandfather, had a virus and was running a fever, so she wasn’t dropped off at daycare that day.
Thedford says that when he went back home, he forgot the baby was still in the mini-van, and went back inside the home and took a nap for about four hours. When he awoke from his nap about 1 p.m. he couldn’t find the baby and realized he had left her in the car. He ran outside. The baby was unresponsive so Thedford rushed her back inside the house.
In his statement, reports KHOU, Thedford said he placed the baby in the refrigerator “for an undetermined length of time prior to calling 911.” The warrant says Thedford called his wife and 911 while trying to perform CPR on his daughter. When deputies arrived at 1:30 p.m, the baby was found dead in the kitchen.
During his interview with deputies from the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, Thedford said he was an unemployed high school teacher and his wife of 12 years is a veterinarian, working in Plano, Texas. Temperatures in Collins County reached 91 degrees Fahrenheit at noontime of Tuesday this week.
