Background: News footage of the car where Maya Hernandez allegedly left her two sons (WGET). Inset: Amillio Gutierrez (GoFundMe).
A California woman who allegedly left her two baby boys in a hot car while she got a cosmetic procedure now faces charges.
Maya Hernandez, 20, pleaded not guilty to one count of manslaughter and two counts of willful cruelty to a child during her court appearance on July 1. She remains in custody at the Kern County Jail on more than $1 million bail. According to a criminal complaint obtained by local ABC affiliate KFSN, Hernandez brought her two sons — an unnamed 2-year-old boy and 1-year-old Amillio — with her to an appointment at a medical spa in Bakersfield.
Police said that while she filled out paperwork and underwent a lip-filler procedure, she left her two boys in her car as air temperatures climbed into triple digits, despite calling the facility that morning and asking if she would be able to bring her two children inside with her.
“Sure if you don”t mind them waiting in the waiting room hun,” the spa told Hernandez, according to local ABC affiliate KERO.
Instead, Hernandez left the boys strapped into their car seats inside the locked car, police said.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
According to the criminal complaint, the procedure Hernandez was getting only took around 15-20 minutes. However, according to employees of the medical spa who spoke to police, it was busy on the day of Hernandez’s appointment, June 29, and she was away from her car for approximately two and a half hours. During that time, she never checked on her two children.
Hernandez later told police that she thought her boys would be okay because she left the air conditioning on.
KGET, a local NBC affiliate, reported that Hernandez’s car was a 2022 Toyota Corolla hybrid. According to an expert quoted in the criminal complaint who spoke to Bakersfield police, the car’s engine was designed to shut itself off after an hour. When the boys were found, the car was warm inside.
Police believed that the boys were in the car without air conditioning for around an hour and a half. The air temperature that day was reportedly 101 degrees.
When Hernandez finally returned to her car at 4:30 p.m. after getting her lips done, she found Amillio foaming at the mouth and having a seizure, police said. Employees of the medical spa rushed out to help and brought the 2-year-old boy inside to cool him down with water. Police arrived at the scene at 4:45 p.m.
Amillio, who had a body temperature of 107 degrees, was brought to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:48 p.m. His brother was hospitalized and later put in child protective custody.
According to a GoFundMe page, the boys’ father is currently incarcerated. He was informed of his son’s death by a jail chaplain, according to KFSN.
The criminal complaint stated that when Hernandez was told that her younger son was dead, she “admitted that she knew it was irresponsible to leave her kids in the car, and she thought about it when she got out of the car, but had no justification as to why she left them anyway.”
Hernandez is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on July 14.
