Toddler dies in 120-degree car while mom watches ‘Shameless’ with boyfriend

WARNING: Distressing content

A mother whose toddler died after being left alone in a hot car for five hours will be eligible for parole in less than two years.

Laura Rose Peverill was sentenced by Queensland’s Supreme Court to seven years’ jail time on Friday over the death of her three-year-old daughter back in November 2020.

The court was told that Rylee Rose Black was left alone in the back seat of a locked car for more than five hours in the middle of the day, as internal temperatures reached 51.5 degrees Celsius (about 124 degrees Fahrenheit), the ABC reported.

The 39-year-old from Townsville, Queensland, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in April.

In closing submissions, prosecutor David Nardone told the court that the blistering hot temperatures inside the 4WD were simply “not survivable.”

He said Rylee would have experienced “suffering up to the point of coma, and then death.”

The toddler was found unresponsive inside the back of the Toyota Prado, with summer temperatures that day reaching over 31 degrees Celsius (about 87 degrees Fahrenheit).

Mr. Nardone told the court that Peverill and her boyfriend at the time picked up groceries, parked the Prado in a shadeless driveway and removed the groceries, but not Rylee.

The couple then went inside and ironically watched a Netflix series called Shameless.

It was only when Peverill went to pick her other children up from school that she discovered Rylee covered in vomit and slumped in her seat.

She was rushed to hospital where she died of heat stroke or thermoregulatory failure, with a body temperature of 41 degrees Celsius (about 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

In a victim impact statement, Rylee’s father Peter Black said his world was torn apart when he received a call from the hospital.

“The world stopped turning … my happy, bubbly princess was gone forever … could it be real, it made no sense,” he said.

Mr. Black said when he arrived at the hospital he was greeted by nurses and police officers who told him Rylee was in “no state to be seen”, the Townsville Bulletin reported.

Mr Black spoke of the day of his daughter’s funeral where he viewed her body and sang, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ to her.

“I apologized to her for not being able to save her and I would have moved mountains if I had been there,” he said.

Defence barrister Victoria Trafford-Walker told the court how Peverill had suffered mental health and alcohol issues for many years.

She said that on the day Rylee died Peverill was stressed because she was dealing with removalists so she could move in with her then boyfriend.

“It has had a profound and everlasting impact on her life. She has lost her partnership with her then-boyfriend, and now even feels she deserves to go to prison,” Ms. Trafford-Walker said.

“Although she is fearful of what might occur because of the nature of the offense.”