Law&Crime Sidebar - Boating Trip Turns into Nightmare After Parents' Disturbing Decision

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Tanna Rae Wroblewski was less than four months old when her parents, Matthew and Alyssa Wroblewski, brought her along on a boating trip at Lake Havasu in Arizona. As the temperature soared to nearly 120 degrees, Tanna Rae was found in distress and rushed to a hospital where she died. Now the district attorney’s office is considering whether to charge the Wroblewskis. Law & Crime’s Jesse Weber gets insight from Arizona criminal defense attorney Aaron Reed on what might happen next.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. It's going to be up to Arizona prosecutors to decide if parents should face charges after their baby died during a trip to the lake. What was supposed to be a fun family day out on the water turned into a nightmare when a little four-month-old's parents realized she was unresponsive. And now an autopsy has been completed and the county attorney's office is reviewing the case. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. This is a tough one. This is a tough one. It's not only tough because of how sad this story is,

that's a given, but because it's difficult knowing what the right answer is in terms of legal responsibility. I say that because authorities are trying to decide whether to charge the parents of an infant who died last 4th of July weekend during a family boating outing. The Mojave County Sheriff's Office in Kingman, Arizona forwarded the case to the county attorney's office for quote, review of potential negligent homicide charges. So now the question, of course, is what happened? And if you thought that this was a case of someone driving a boat recklessly and crashing, that's not the case. That's what I first thought when I read it. Not the case at all. This is, again, a bit more difficult to parse through. So we have Matthew and Alyssa Robaluski

of California. And they were spending the day on Lake Havasu in Arizona on July 5th of last year. And that is when they found their little daughter, four-month-old, Tana Ray, unresponsive in the boat. Around 5.30 in the afternoon, according to an autopsy report, she was transported by boat to Lake Havasu Regional Medical Center and then to Phoenix Children's Hospital where she died. This is an awful, awful situation. But again, what happened? How did this child die? Well, here's the thing.

Now that the Maricopa County Medical Examiner has completed an autopsy, we are learning a lot more. So according to Newsweek, the autopsy report describes Tana Ray's death as an accident, quote, caused by complication. of environmental heat exposure and elevated environmental temperatures. And I want you to picture this. This is Arizona in July, so the temperatures reached almost 120 degrees that day. That's according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the National Weather Service had actually issued an excessive heat warning for the whole state. So the autopsy report listed multiple heat-related injuries, including hemorrhagic shock, rapid decrease in hemoglobin,

dehydration, an anoxic brain injury, meaning the brain was deprived of oxygen, a cerebral edema, which is when the brain swells because of excess fluid buildup. But here's the thing that this is important. If you're wondering if this is about prior abuse, the autopsy report also noted that Tana Rae, who was technically three months and 27 days old, was a, quote, well-developed, well-nourished female infant. So, seemingly healthy before this lake outing. And the autopsy report, again, as reported by Newsweek, says that around 5 p.m. that day, Tana Ray was put down for a nap after breastfeeding, and she was reportedly wearing damp clothing.

She was beneath a covered section of the boat and had a fan blowing in her direction. But that evidently wasn't enough to keep her cool and safe. And by the way, it arguably goes to the idea of her parents having knowledge of how hot it was. We'll get to that more in a minute. but the autopsy finding states, quote, the parents reportedly entered the water for a brief period of time and returned to the boat to find the decedent unresponsive with blood exiting her nose and clear fluid coming from her mouth.

The family reportedly called for emergency services and initiated CPR. And reportedly EMT showed up just a few minutes later. They saw a family member doing CPR. This is all according to the documentation. And Tonneray was rushed to the hospital. There was reportedly no obvious trauma to her body. Now, emergency personnel, they tried their best to save this four-month-old

with multiple rounds of CPR doses of epinephrine, but she was pronounced dead just before midnight. And here is what is important to remember. So according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, newborns and infants, they are particularly susceptible to dehydration and heat stroke, and the AAP encourages parents not to leave young children outside, for a long period of time if the temperature exceeds 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Maricopa County Medical Examiner Tiffany Morrison concluded in her report, quote, in consideration of the known circumstances surrounding this death, the available medical history, and the examination of the remains. It is my opinion that the cause of death is ascribed to complications of environmental heat exposure. It is further, my opinion, that the manner of death is accident. However, it appears that the sheriff's office forwarded the information to the county attorney's office to see if they will conclude that Matthew and Alyssa, the parents, should be criminally charged in connection with their daughter, Tanna Ray's death. And here is something else to note as well. Apparently, Matthew is a police officer in Riverside, California, and a spokesperson told Newsweek that Matthew was still with the department, that they wouldn't be commenting on the situation.

Now, here's something else to note. In the aftermath of this baby's death, Alyssa was listed as the recipient on a GoFundMe page that raised almost $50,000 before the organizer took it down, which they can do at any time. And GoFundMe told Newsweek that the organizer had not appeared to break any of the platform's rules, that the fundraiser was categorized under funerals and memorials.

And GoFundMe told Newsweek, when a fundraiser is created to support another individual, funds are safely held by our payment processors and only transferred to the recipient of the fundraiser. We can confirm that all funds raised will go directly to the listed beneficiary for funeral expenses as stated in the fundraiser description. And the page said that medical personnel at the hospital did everything in their power to revive her, but God had other plans and took Tanna to heaven that night. Our precious baby girl gave us her last smiles. We gave her our last kisses. We will never understand why you had to leave so soon. You were just

too perfect. And not long after the fundraiser started, investigators announced that they were looking into Tanna-Ray's death. And so far, no one has been arrested or charged, and it's understanding. GoFundMe apparently told Newsweek that this couple, even if they're charged, even if they're convicted, they could still technically be entitled to the money on the GoFundMe page. Now, I had a chance to speak with Arizona criminal defense attorney Aaron Reid about this case. Take a listen. Aaron, thanks so much for coming here on Sidebar. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a really, really sad story.

What is just your overall reaction to this story? Well, first, it's something that you don't really see that often. The four-month-old, it's tragic. It's sad. It's really something that should never happen. And I don't know. It's hard to get inside the parents' minds and figure out what they were thinking at that time. But I am hard-pressed to find most parents that think that would be a good idea

to take a four-month-old out onto a boat in any weather, let alone 120 degrees in the middle of summer in Arizona. So it's just tragic all around, and it should have been avoided. Yeah, look, this is not an easy story to cover, but it is very, very important because these kinds of terrible tragedies, they happen a lot, and we want to shed a light on what happens. And I listen, I've got to really thank and I appreciate our partner and sponsor Morgan in Oregon because it's with their support that helps us to tell these stories and produce this.

And this is, by the way, America's largest personal injury law from them. They have over 1,000 attorneys. You know why? They win a lot. I mean, listen to this. In the past few months, Morgan and Morgan secured a $29 million verdict for a bicyclist in Philadelphia, a $2.7 million verdict for a car accident victim in Florida, not to mention $5.6 million for a car crash victim in Georgia after insurance offered that client $0.

dollars. So even if you think your case isn't worth millions of dollars, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan and Morgan makes it so simple. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar. Well, that's definitely true in terms of, you know, whether or not that this was a really bad parenting decision. And this was a morally terrible decision. The question is, is this a crime? It's incredibly sad, but do you think a crime was committed here? I mean, do you think these parents will face charges such as, let's say, negligent homicide?

What do you think? I think there are a few different avenues for criminal prosecutions on this kind of thing. And I've thought about this. There's different statutes in every state has different levels of homicides. Arizona is no different. Negligent homicide, as you mentioned, is one of them. I think that one would fit pretty easily into the fact pattern. But the question I have is, could they get something, could they, meaning the prosecution in Mojave County, could they look for something more severe, such as a manslaughter or even a second degree murder? And I know that sounds weird or crazy, but in Arizona, I have a lot of clients that have had DUIs. They crash into someone and kill them, which is a reckless action and an accident. and they're charged with second-degree murder.

And the cause of death here was an accident, and the conduct appeared to be reckless. So I could see a prosecutor possibly charging a second-degree murder if they were that bold. But I do think there are a few different avenues to criminal prosecution. Well, I mean, the difference would be they weren't high or drunk and operating a vehicle, and this was like a crash or something of that nature. I mean, you could say they shouldn't have brought their child into excessive.

excessive heats like this and the way they were, you know, jumped back into the water. But why would it be negligent homicide? Why would it be second-degree murder? What crosses the line between an accident, a tragedy, and a crime? You know, you could hold the parents morally responsible for what happened here, but why should you hold them legally responsible? Let's talk about that line. It's a great, great question, and that's something that as lawyers, that's what we try to do

every day. And I have had cases with accidents that they call homicides and homicides that were accidents. And that line is not always easy to see. I would say in most situations, when you're dealing with the negligent homicide, anything that a normal, reasonable person would look at it and say, okay, that's probably not something you should do. You can probably make a case for negligence, such as bringing a four-month-old outside in 120-degree weather and leaving them out there for an extended period of time, that could be considered a negligent action or negligence on part of the child. Where it crosses over is the recklessness. So that part of the mens rea or the mental state is the reasonable person standard. What a reasonable person in those parents' situation believe that

their conduct is reckless. I think a lot of people would probably say that. And I think you could possibly get 12 jurors to agree that the conduct that they undertook was reckless. It seems like a stretch to get it to second degree. I don't quite think it'll get there, although I have seen crazier things happen with prosecutors, but I do think this is kind of the question between a negligent homicide versus a manslaughter and finding that line. And the argument would be, you know, it was incredibly hot. There was an excessive heat warning from experts. I believe that was released the day before parents should have known or been expected to know how dangerous it would be to do this. You mentioned a jury. You think you'd be able to convince a jury that, and I'm talking

you, but prosecutors, you think they'd be able to convince a jury that these parents committed a crime? I mean, there's one thing that you look at pictures of this four-month-old. You look at what happened here. You want to have some sense of justice. But I can imagine defense attorneys would say they're crushed. This was a tragedy. They you know, things like this happen, unfortunately, across the country where parents are doing things that it might not be foreseeable, might not be known that this would happen, that parents always take their children out, whether it's cold or whether it's hot, again, not justifying or excusing what happened here. But don't you think it would be tough to convince a jury beyond a

reasonable doubt that they committed a crime? Oh, I definitely think it would be tough. But a lot of homicide cases, even from the prosecution's perspective, are tough. And defense attorneys that are really good at their job, they make it tough. And that's part of the, that's part of the game and part of the system. But when I look at something like this, I see people across the country that are charged in negligent actions because their child drowned in the pool and they weren't watching them. Right. These people, they knew they were on Lake Havasu. They frequented Lake Havasu, boats they were outside a lot they knew Arizona heat they know all of these things and not only that but you could bring in some sort of a scientific

component with doctors and medical experts and young children under the age of two or three they don't have a great ability to regulate their own body temperatures and as a parent you should probably know that before bringing them out into extreme weather it's one thing to bring them outside you know go get the mail stay out there for a few minutes or whatever but it's another to be out there on a lake for an extended period of time with really nowhere to go, but just hot everywhere around you. And that's, I think, where a prosecutor could draw that line. And I think they could, it would come down to the type of jury that you get. And in that county, they're extremely

conservative and not the best ideal jury pool for these kinds of things. Are there, and I don't know if you know the answer of this, but are there specific laws or regulations that have to be followed out on the water that could impact this prosecution? Is there something that they were alerted to before that, I don't know, was there some sort of sign? It's a hot day. You're going to be in the sun. You should take care. Is there anything like that that would affect this case? I'm sure there, in addition to the excessive heat warnings, right? Anytime a person is on a boat, there are things about life jackets and things like that. I believe that she did. have a life jacket on and those kinds of precautions so they were taking those steps but as far as

just the overall exposure to the heat i don't know if there was explicit signs or things like that around the lake i'm sure there were constant reminders to stay hydrated stay out of the sun you know be careful there is an excessive heat warning across the entire state during that time of the year and it's common all the way up from mojave county down to the southern border where you see people hiking or whatever they're doing and grown adults are dying, let alone four-month-olds that can't do anything to help themselves. So I think it definitely is a gray area as far as criminal charges, but I would not be shocked if they pulled the trigger and actually filed them. That wouldn't surprise me. By the way, these parents, they've received, I believe, nearly $50,000 in GoFundMe

donations. And my understanding is GoFundMe came out and said that these parents, can still keep the money, even if they're charged. My question would be, does the GoFundMe come into evidence for either side at a trial? Well, that's a very good question. I think it would depend on a lot of the language in the GoFundMe account, what they were saying. Anything that they type out on them on their own, right, that can be used as some sort of an admission, and maybe it can be used as a statement against them. I think that is a possibility that they could use that evidence in trial. That would be a pretty unique piece of evidence to use, something you don't quite see very often. And I think that would be an interesting angle to take for a prosecutor.

And I think that this kind of case would need those kinds of pieces of evidence, right? You need medical evidence. You need experts to talk about how children are different from adults, how infants are different from adults. You would need those kinds of pieces of evidence. And it would be a unique case and an interesting situation for a prosecutor to go through. By the way, so this child dies in Arizona, the family is from California. Are there challenges to prosecuting this in the sense that maybe they, you know, a different state, they didn't know exactly what was going on, are there challenges about prosecuting somebody from a different state or is this already like we talked about?

they've they're frequent in this they should have known it's they can easily be prosecuted in arizona even if they're from another state anything we should be thinking about there no and anybody that travels from any other state to whatever state that you're traveling to it's presumed that you're supposed to follow the rules and the laws of that state that you're in regardless of whether you've been there once a hundred times or how frequently you go there And it doesn't take a scientist to see a temperature gauge and know that it's extremely hot out. Even if you're from California, it gets plenty hot in California. And I know the Inland Empire and things like that, it gets almost just as hot as it does here.

So they have knowledge about the heat and what that does to the human body. And I think that is not going to fly. I mean, regardless of whether you're from, you come to Arizona, you go to Nevada in Vegas. people get arrested on the strip partying all the time that have never been there. It doesn't really matter. That's not going to be a defense for them. Let me ask you this. So Matthew is actually a police detective in California. Does that affect the case in the sense that, you know, it's, first of all, will be tough. Will the jury know his profession? That's number one.

Would that, would a jury be tough to prosecute, would convict somebody who's a member of law enforcement? but also having that skill set, having that training, being aware of circumstances and surroundings, I wonder if that could hurt him. That's an interesting point as well. I think there are things that could hurt him as far as his training, his experience, knowing what human life is about as a detective. But there are, I think, things that could help him in the sense that he is a detective. He's a law enforcement officer.

How eager would other law enforcement officers be to pursue charges in a gray sort of area against another fellow law enforcement officer. I think that sort of thing is it happens across the entire country, whether we like it or not. Some people get preferential treatment. Some people might get treated a little differently based on their status. So that has to be factored in. Can't be ignored. I do think that could help him avoid charges.

And even if he does get charged, will a jury know what his profession is? That's a great question. I think in my eyes, I would try to keep it out. unless I knew my client was going to take the stand, then I would prepare for it in that way. But if he wasn't going to testify, I don't know how his profession would be relevant to the facts of that day, unless this prosecutor was able to bring in

that he has some sort of medical training through being a detective. Well, let's see what happens. Let's see if the parents are ultimately charged. Again, not entirely sure whether that should happen or will happen, but we'll keep our eyes open for that. Aaron Reid, thank you so much for coming on talking about what is really just a sad, sad case. This is a tough one to talk about, but appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you so much for having me on. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app,

Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.