Claudia Byatt
Legal

Woman demands jail time for own mother

A grieving Florida woman is demanding her own mother serve prison time after her two young children died less than a year apart while allegedly in their grandmother’s care, one in an accidental drowning and another as a result of being left unattended in a hot car.

Court records show that the grandmother, Tracey Nix, 65, was arrested and charged in November 2022 for aggravated manslaughter and leaving a child unsupervised in a motor vehicle.

The charges are in relation to the death of seven-month-old Uriel Schock on November 1 2022.

“How do you forget a little girl,” Uriel’s father, Drew Schock, said in an emotional interview with local station WFTS.

Authorities reported that Nix left the young child in her car outside her Wauchula home for several hours after returning from lunch. Nix claimed she “forgot” about the child being in the vehicle, according to court documents.

Nix told authorities that her daughter, Kaila Schock, asked her to mind Uriel while she went to a hair appointment, the documents read.

Nix said she went to a friend’s house that morning before leaving to pick up Uriel.

She then drove to a restaurant for lunch, the documents state. The pair left the restaurant at about 1:40pm.

Security footage saw Nix putting Uriel into the rear car seat before driving off, authorities said in the documents.

Nix claimed she drove about 10 minutes back to her home, parked the car and went inside to talk to her dog and practise the piano.

She told Hardee County Sheriff’s Office that it was not like “I was rushing in the house to do anything ... I just forgot,” according to court documents.

The court filings said that Nix was waiting for her other grandchild to arrive, so they could go out to dinner.

After 4:30pm, Nix took two cups of tea out to her car for her and her grandson before driving her vehicle to her backyard.

According to authorities, Nix’s husband was in the backyard and the couple talked for about 10 minutes, the documents state.

When the older grandchild arrived, Nix said it suddenly “came across her head” that Uriel was still in the car, court documents state.

Nix’s husband pulled the baby from the car and performed CPR while someone called 911.

Uriel was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. The sheriff’s office said temperatures that day reached approximately 32°C.

Autopsies showed no sign of injury. The little girl’s death was ruled a homicide.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Tags:
Car death, Arrest, Manslaughter, World news