A Louisiana woman is charged with murder after allegedly leaving her baby in her SUV for around five hours Sunday in Lake Charles, resulting in the child’s death.
“Somebody out there would have loved this child, somebody would have loved the opportunity to raise this child,” chief deputy Gary “Stitch” Guillory said.
22-year-old Ivy L. Lee flagged down an off-duty deputy around 3:45 p.m. Sunday near Enterprise Boulevard and Broad Street and told the deputy her 6-month-old daughter was not breathing, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kayla Vincent said.
The off-duty deputy and another deputy who was patrolling the area performed life-saving measures on the child, Vincent said. The child was brought to a local hospital where she was later pronounced dead.
Lee originally told detectives that the child was not in her care. She later told detectives that she left the child in her small SUV for around five hours at her workplace on Gerstner Memorial Drive, Vincent said.
“She stated that she initially left the car running, but a coworker later told her the car was later running, and she turned her vehicle off,” Guillory said.
Suspected marijuana was found in the SUV, Vincent said.
This isn’t Lee’s first incident like this. She was arrested in 2019 for child desertion charges for leaving a two-month-old in a vehicle.
“That child was removed from the home and placed with a family member,” Guillory said. “During the course of our investigation, we learned of other instances where Lee had left the child in the vehicle.”
Lee was booked into the Calcasieu Correctional Center on charges of second-degree murder and possession of marijuana. She is held on $1,204,000 bond.
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