Child?s death ruled accidental
Knox County authorities said on Tuesday the death of a 3-year-old boy found dead in a hot car outside his home was accidental.
The Knox County Medical Examiner ruled the death of Brian Alexander Womack was caused by heat stroke and was accidental.
The Knox County Sheriff’s Department was still investigating what happened, and officials couldn’t say if anyone will be charged, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
The family went to bed at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday after a car struck a power pole and cut off electricity to the family’s sweltering house, his mother, Mary Womack said.
The family awoke after noon and found the boy missing, she said. Apparently he had gotten up and opened a sliding glass door to go outside. He was found in the back seat of the car.
Officials said the temperature in the car was 169 degrees.
In a separate case, a Kingsport couple was indicted by a grand jury last week on charges related to the death of their 2-year-old son, Parker Gibson, who was found unconscious in a hot car at their home last August. The toddler was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Shannon and Anthony Gibson are charged with aggravated child neglect and reckless homicide, according to a Tuesday news release from the Kingsport Police Department.
The Gibsons said they put Parker down for a nap about 2 p.m. on Aug. 9, then took a nap themselves. When they woke up, the boy was not in his bed.
They said they found him on the floor of the vehicle about 5:30 p.m.
Detective Melanie Adkins said in the release that as far back as a year before the child’s death, he wandered around the neighborhood undetected by his parents. She said it also was common knowledge that the boy loved to play in the family car.
Each parent was being held on $20,000 bond.