CRESTWOOD, Ill. (CBS) ― A south suburban mother was arrested on charges of child endangerment after leaving her baby in a car.

As CBS 2's Pamela Jones reports, Ellen "Treffly" Coyne says she took her children and one of their friends to donate a little more than $8 in change to the Salvation Army at a Wal-Mart store on Saturday.

Coyne says she left her youngest daughter, 2-year-old Phoebe, locked in her parked car a few feet away while she snapped a couple of photos.

Oh btw, at Walmarts around here it's fairly routine for people to park next to the curb right by the front door if they're picking up/dropping off or waiting for some reason. They're not supposed to per fire code and all, but I haven't seen anyone make a fuss over it. If that's what this lady did that would probably explain why the cop noticed the kid in the first place

www.topix.net...

Coyne pulled up to the curb to take a picture of the girls as they posed by the bell-ringer and poured their coins into the red receptacle.

'My 2-year-old had fallen fast asleep,' Coyne said. 'It was sleeting, and I said, 'I'm not going to risk carrying my kid and falling.' '

So she turned off the engine, put her hazard lights on, locked the car and walked 30 feet from the car to get a few snapshots of the girls, Coyne said.

'I was always within ear- and eyeshot of the car,' Coyne said. 'It was a five-minute affair.'
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Coyne was arrested outside the Wal-Mart Saturday night on charges of child-endangerment and obstruction of justice after police arriving as backup demanded to know the name of her 2-year-old. Coyne refused to speak until her husband arrived, she said, and soon found herself cuffed and in the back of a squad car.

Officers then went to her car and started the engine with the baby inside - 'exposing my child to carbon monoxide poisoning,' Coyne said. She assumed the other girls were in police custody.

But they weren't.

'The police abandoned my other daughters at the Wal-Mart,' said Janecyk, who eventually found them seated on a bench in the Wal-Mart. 'I asked them why they didn't ask for help, but they said the police scared them.'

Crestwood Police Chief Timothy Sulikowski did not return phone calls requesting comment.

Janecyk said it took him several hours to get his youngest daughter out of police protective custody and to get his wife released. Coyne is being investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe would not comment on the status of the investigation, but said, 'The department has had no prior contact with this family.'

The Antioch, IL, Wal-Mart has an Antioch P.D. sub-station in it and I see a cop sitting in his cruiser every other time I go.

In Victoria, police will reveal later this morning if they intend to charge a woman who left her baby boy inside a hot car for two hours while she played poker machines. The 19-month-old child died overnight in a Melbourne hospital.

A 11-year-old boy was found dead Wednesday in a locked car in temperatures approaching 100 degrees in Orofino, Idaho. The boy’s stepgrandmother was charged, the authorities said. The sweltering temperatures in Idaho were part of a heat wave sweeping parts of the West. In St. George, Utah, temperatures hit 111 by 1:30 p.m., a day after a nearby weather sensor recorded an unofficial reading of 118, which would top the state’s record of 117 set in St. George in 1985. Around Las Vegas, w...

July 6, 2007

RESULTS
As of 31 December 2002, the database contained information
on 233 heat related deaths to children in parked motor
vehicles. Although this study focuses on the United States,
deaths were also identified in Australia (6), Japan (4),
England (2), Israel (2), Italy (1), and Malaysia (1).
A total of 171 deaths comprising 159 incidents met the case
criteria (box 1).
In 10 incidents, two children died in each vehicle, and in
one incident, three died. Forty six children (27%) died while
playing and 125 children (73%) died when left unattended.
The children’s ages ranged from 10 days to 4 years; almost
two thirds (64%) were male. The mode for girls was
,6 months old, while for boys it was 2–2.5 years (table 2).
We grouped the circumstances by children who gained
access while playing (27%) and by those left by adults (73%),
which further divided into forgotten, left intentionally, and
unclear intentions (fig 1).
High temperatures ranged from 63 to 115° F. Three
quarters of incidents (124 of 159) were during the summer
months of June, July, and August. There were no patterns to
the number of deaths each year, ranging from seven in 1996
to 30 in 1999. Incidents occurred in 41 of 50 states (fig 2).
Most reports estimated how much time elapsed from when
the child was last seen or placed in the car to when the child
was found. The estimates ranged from less than 15 minutes
to 10 hours; one child’s body was not found for several days.
Eighty two percent (140/171) of children were in the vehicle
for >1 hour, and 29% (50/171) were in the vehicle for
>5 hours. A larger percentage of girls (39%) than boys (24%)
were enclosed for >5 hours.