Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Florida Babysitter Allegedly Left Baby Girl to Die in 133-Degree Car

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

10-month-old Ariya Paige died in July 2023 after deputies in Baker County, Florida said her babysitter left her in a hot car for nearly five hours. Rhonda Jewell was charged with one count of aggravated manslaughter of a child and her trial was scheduled to begin next week. But prosecutors have filed two additional felony charges against Jewell. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg about the new charges in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A 10-month-old baby girl dies in a hot car and prosecutors in Florida say her babysitter is solely to blame and now she's facing new charges. I have the sad case of Ariah Page and how her parents have fought to prevent other children from dying in the very same way. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Ariah Page's parents were beaming with joy over having a baby girl. You can see it when you look

at the photos of them with her online. But on July 19th of last year, Ariah's short life ended in the most tragic and awful way. The sheriff in Baker County, Florida, said that Rhonda Jewell picked up Ariah from her parents' home in McClunney, west of Jacksonville, and drove to another home to babysit other children. After leaving the home, a sheriff's incident report said that Jewell stopped by a Burger King, but the line was too long, so she left. The sheriff said Jewel went to a home where she was watching other children and left Ariah in the vehicle. Keep in mind, this was Florida in July, and the sheriff said Jewel left Ariah's parents' home at 8 a.m.

The sheriff says the temperature reached more than 100 degrees in the vehicle that day. It wasn't until 1 p.m. that day, five hours later, that Araya's mother arrived at that other home to pick up Araya, and Jewel discovered that Araya was in her vehicle, according to the sheriff's report. That August, Rhonda Jewel was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child. You can only imagine what each day is like for Araya's family. Her parents had dreams for their little girl, and they were sadly dashed in a matter of moments in one morning. Araya's obituary begins, Dearest Araya, please know that our greatest blessing was having you. It continues,

Araya was full of life and loved beyond measure. She enjoyed being outdoors and riding in the boat with daddy. Ariah loved her mommy and daddy so very much. She was most definitely a daddy's girl, but she was also mommy's mini-me and best friend. Her other best friends included her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Nibbles, and stuffed elephant, Mizella. Reading that is so incredibly sad. It's just heartbreaking. Ariah's parents, her entire family, were devastated by her death, but they wanted to do whatever they could to ensure that other children didn't die by being left in hot cars. So they took action. They lobbied to create Araya's Act. As a mother, I cannot even begin to imagine what that family has endured, But their determination and perseverance to make a difference is remarkable.

Senate Bill 554 designates the month of April as Hot Car Death Prevention Month to raise awareness about the dangers of leaving children unattended in vehicles and how to prevent those deaths from occurring. Earlier this year, Governor DeSantis signed a RI's act and it took effect on July 1st. Because of it, several state agencies are being encouraged to hold events to educate the public about the dangers of leaving children in hot cars and the criminal penalties for doing so. Araya's parents have also started the Facebook page, Araya's Life Story. They post photos of her and updates about the court case. Just this week, Aria would have celebrated her second birthday. Her parents posted,

Happy second heavenly birthday to our girl. We love you so much. Rock out for your second birthday and one day we'll be up there to celebrate with you. We love and miss you more than anything ever. The page also contains sweet videos of Ariah for the page's 27,000 followers to view. For her part, Rhonda Jewell, she's free on bail. She has pleaded not guilty to that aggravated manslaughter of a child charge. And her trial was scheduled to begin next week in Baker County. But just last week on the eve of trial, the state attorney filed two additional new charges. Their third degree murder not premeditated during another felony and leaving a child unattended or unsupervised in a motor vehicle with great bodily harm. Jules' lawyer plans to call Dr. David Diamond, a professor of psychology whose research has included research on stress

and memory. He's also conducted research on why parents and caregivers leave children in hot cars. He wrote, research indicates that children have been forgotten in cars by non-parental caretakers and mothers and fathers at all levels of socioeconomic status and education, including well-educated and highly responsible people, such as a physician, teacher, news reporter, judge, prosecutor, pediatrician, firefighter, dentist, hospital administrator, daycare owner, and professors. Whether Dr. Diamond's testimony will benefit Rhonda Jewell, that remains to be seen. And at this point, the trial is not going to go as scheduled next week.

It will be rescheduled for November. The defense has also filed a motion asking the judge to bar prosecutors from referencing that Rhonda Jewell did not consent to take a test for the presence of drugs or alcohol. I want to bring in Dave Ehrenberg. He is the state attorney for Palm Beach County. Dave, this is an incredibly horrible, sad case. And it seems like one of these cases where you can look at it and see that Rhonda Jewell did in fact leave the baby in the car here. So how do you defend this case?

Well, that's why I'm a prosecutor. I don't like defending these cases. I like justice. And you can see by the outpouring of support for this family on the streets of Baker County that the people are very upset about this and they demand justice. This is a small community. This is, even though the news media is from the Jacksonville area, Baker County is a rural and lightly populated community.

So a lot of people know each other. And this really hits close to home. The alleged crime here was not apparently intentional. And that's why you don't see perhaps more serious charges. But it's still a crime, even if you have an accident, if you act recklessly, if you act so negligently that a tragedy occurs, you're going to be charged with it. This is like shooting in the air on New Year's Eve, and then the bullet comes out and kills someone. Well, you didn't intend to kill someone, but you acted so recklessly that you're going to be charged and face years in prison for it. They filed new charges in this case. There's a third degree murder charge. And this happened, you know, just recently

in the last several days that the prosecutor filed these new charges. It was third degree murder. It's not a premeditated crime, but it was while committing another felony and then leaving the child unattended, unsupervised in the car. So she had just been charged with the aggravated manslaughter of a child. So if you're the prosecutor in this case, and you are a prosecutor, why wait until the 11th hour on the eve of trial to file these additional charges? Investigations are always continuing. New information comes out. You get documents that could show that there was more than just a one-time accident. Perhaps there's a pattern here.

Perhaps there's a witness testimony or cameras or something that provides more evidence for prosecutors to file these more serious charges. You can always do so. After all, the goal is to do justice. You don't want to get it done fast. You want to get it done right. So I think that this sounds like the appropriate charge in this case. And quite frankly, although prosecutors are supposed to ignore the polls and opinions in the community, you know, that could affect them. But ultimately, they are motivated by the evidence and the law. You can only charge what you think you can get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt for. Probable cause is enough to make an arrest, but that's for police.

For prosecutors, we have a higher burden. And if they didn't think they could get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt for third-degree murder, they would never have filed that charge. The defense in this case has retained an expert in memory. He's a psychologist, Dr. Diamond, and he's done some research on hot car cases, why parents and caregivers might leave their children in the car unintentionally. There are all kinds of reasons in the research for this. Maybe somebody is just distracted, muscle memory, these types of things. But yikes. I just don't see how with the facts in this case, this is a 10-month-old baby that she picked up at the parent's house. She goes to Burger King, the line's too

long. Maybe you could say she forgot then. And I don't, nobody's saying this was intentional, but maybe she forgets the baby is in the car and she leaves the baby in the car and then goes over to the house to babysit other children and is distracted. I just, I mean, what's the strategy here? Because I just don't know how, you know, you get off on these charges. They may not try to get an acquittal here. They may just think that if they could have an expert, have a legitimate defense, and perhaps the prosecutors will deal with them, will make a deal and get something less than what she's facing now. I mean, now she's facing a murder count, even though it's third degree murder. So this just may be the wheels of justice spinning slowly where you have strategy here without actually

believing you're going to get acquitted. I mean, this is a terrible case for the defense. The jurors, I think, are going to hate this defendant because it's one thing to make a mistake. That's why pencils have erasers, right? But when you do it with a child in your backseat, someone dies and it's so horrific. And you have to think that why do you go into the profession of babysitting, of watching over a baby, a child, if you were that cavalier, if you were that forgetful. I mean, it sounds like someone, if she takes a stand, I don't expect that she would, that would get no sympathy from this jury. So I think this is a tough one for the defense. And they may just hire the expert, put forward some sort of defense in the hope that pre-trial the prosecutors will come to them and

say, let's cut a deal to avoid the expense and the pain of a trial. I guess the prosecution was pre-trial recommending 30 years, which is a really tough sentence, obviously, but this is a baby. I mean, the most defenseless of victims, even if it wasn't an intentional crime, the baby, I mean, had no chance whatsoever. It's just horrific and it's just awful. So you think that part of filing these additional charges could be part of the prosecution wanting her to plead to something? Well, you're not supposed to file charges to get someone just to plea. You have to file charges only if the evidence sustains it. And so, no, I do think the reason why they filed the charges was because they plea bargain, because for a first-degree felony, I mean, that's the maximum. So that's why it's unlikely to agree to something that would be the

maximum punishment if you're being charged with a first-degree felony. Now, I would think that that perhaps is the beginning of negotiations, not the end. And perhaps as this thing moves forward, the trial date is now pushed back to November, that there'll be more negotiations along the way. Dave, I've covered a lot of these horrible cases over the years, and they're just awful, where parents forget that the baby is in the car. And only recently have I seen a lot of cases where people actually faced criminal charges for this. So, I mean, do you think this is something we're going to see more frequently now, people actually facing charges? Because I've seen cases in the past where parents have, heaven forbid, left their baby in the car, they drove to work and thought

that they dropped the baby off at the sitter or whatnot. Do you think that these cases are now being treated more harshly by prosecutors? Every case will be judged on its own merits by prosecutors. I think a key factor here is that this is not the mom. This is a babysitter. If it's a mom and the mom is just destroyed over the mistake that she made, then prosecutors may cut that person a break knowing that there's nothing they could do in a criminal justice system that will be equivalent to the pain that the mother is facing for the rest of her life for making such a fatal error. When it comes to a babysitter who's going to the fast food place and then just is neglectful, that's different. I mean, you're entrusted with someone else's child and it just seems like a lot more cavalier that this is not something that was on the top of

her mind, as it should have been. And as a result, she's going to pay for it. It's different, though, I think when you have a parent, not to say parents won't be charged in the future. They are and will be again. But it's a factor that prosecutors will consider. What's the value of prosecuting someone for this crime, especially if they're going to be living in their own prison every day for the rest of their lives. Well, that sweet little baby, Ariah Page, I mean, it's just horrible. And her parents have done so much to make sure that her memory is honored and hopefully other people will be helped by her death with April being declared hot car death awareness month

or the prevention month. Thank you so much, Dave Ehrenberg. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Anjanette. Now, I do want to let you know, I reached out to Rhonda Jewell's attorney for a comment. He has not yet responded, not at the time of this recording. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thank you so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.