HOUSTON — A Houston woman has been arrested and charged with murder in the hot car death of her 2-month-old son.
According to the Houston Police Department, the infant was found unresponsive in a vehicle in southeast Houston during the heat of the day on August 8, 2023. Investigators later said the baby had been in the vehicle for nearly three hours and his body temperature was 108.
Houston Fire Department paramedics tried to resuscitate Ethan Rosa Deras before rushing him to an area hospital but he didn't survive.
An autopsy by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences later determined the baby's cause of death was homicide.
The case was turned over to the Harris County District Attorney's Office and Gabriela Elyzabeth Deras, 22, was recently charged with murder. She was arrested on Friday, August 2, nearly a year after her son's death.
"Before we even charge a case, we want to be thorough. We want to make sure we have the facts and law on our side," prosecutor Edward Applebaum said. "But it also takes a long time to actually have an autopsy done for a child."
Prosecutors said Deras left the baby in the car when she went into a Harris Health facility with another child.
They said she changed her story several times when she was questioned by police. She initially told them she thought the baby was with his grandmother and then claimed she left the air conditioner running.
According to the National Weather Service, the temperature on the day the baby was found reached triple digits. 2023 was the hottest Houston summer on record.
A judge set Deras' bond at $50,000.
Texas leads the nation in hot car deaths
More children die in hot cars in Texas than in any other state, according to a non-profit that tracks the deaths.
Kids and Cars reports 156 children died in the Lone Star State from 1990 to 2023.
"Your state leads the country by a pretty large margin when it comes to these tragedies,” Kids and Cars Safety Director Amber Rollins told us.
"A vehicle is a greenhouse," Rollins explained. "It lets that sunlight come in through the windows, that solar heat. It heats up very quickly, you know, in a very short amount of time. In fact, the majority of the increase happens within the first 10 minutes.”
Last month, a 4-year-old girl died after being left in a pickup in northwest Houston. Police said there may have been a miscommunication between two adult women as they went into an apartment with multiple children and didn't realize the girl was still in the truck until it was too late.
Just last summer, there were at least three hot car deaths in Texas.
Experts recommend putting something like a purse, wallet, or phone in the backseat so that children aren't forgotten. They say you should also teach children of all ages how to unbuckle the seat belt, honk the horn, and turn on the hazard lights to get attention.
Parents should also teach their children how to unbuckle their seatbelts, honk the horn, turn on flashers or hazard lights, and open front doors.
Pets should never be left in hot cars either.