The father of a child who died after being found unresponsive in a vehicle in the unincorporated View Park community near South Los Angeles is facing a possible murder charge and was being held Thursday on $2 million bail.
Deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Marina del Rey Station responded about 3:10 p.m. Tuesday to the 300 block of Chanson Drive, north of Slauson Avenue and east of Crenshaw Boulevard, after receiving a report of a child not breathing, officials said.
“Los Angeles County Fire Department personnel also responded and pronounced the child deceased at the scene,” according to a sheriff’s department statement.
The child was identified Wednesday by the county medical examiner as 1-year-old Maeve Blankeley-Johnson.
The sheriff’s department has not stated whether the child was left in a hot car, but the activist group Kids and Car Safety reports that the girl is the 29th hot car-related death in the U.S. and fifth in California this year.
Edwin Johnson, 40, of View Park was initially arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect, the sheriff’s department reported.
According to online jail records, the 40-year-old was released on bond after posting $25,000 bail. However, a new record indicates he was arrested again on Wednesday morning, booked on suspicion of murder and was being held at the sheriff’s Marina del Rey Station on $2 million bail, with arraignment scheduled for Friday at the Airport Courthouse, according to the sheriff’s department.
There was no immediate confirmation, however, from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office that the charges had indeed been filed in court or that they would be filed at the Airport Courthouse as opposed to Downtown Los Angeles.
The Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, detectives from the Marina del Rey Station and the medical examiner’s office were continuing to investigate the child’s death.
Anyone with information about the fatality was urged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.