Screaming child rescued from hot car in South Florida as mom shopped at Walmart

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A mother in South Florida was charged with child neglect after she was accused of leaving her four-year-old daughter in a hot car while she shopped at a Walmart, according to the Hollywood Police Department. Her charges have since been dropped.

Anastasiya Motalava, 34, allegedly left her child in a hot car on Sunday. At the same time, she spent more than a half-an-hour inside a nearby Walmart, police said, citing security video taken inside the retailer.

Hollywood Fire Rescue reached the child first and broke into the car to remove the child just before 3.15pm.

Local police said witnesses heard the child screaming in the car and alerted emergency responders, NBC 6 reports.

Investigators said the car's engine was turned off and a window was slightly cracked while the girl was left inside.

Motalava was arrested and charged with one count of child neglect. On Thursday, the Broward County Assistant State Attorney’s Office released a memorandum announcing that the charges against the mother would be dropped.

“There is insufficient evidence to establish that the defendant's failure to provide her child with proper supervision rises to the egregious level of culpable negligence required for felony charge of child neglect,” wrote Melissa Kelly, the county assistant state attorney for Broward County, in the memo.

The document says that the child was not harmed and did not require medical treatment, and Motalava told police she thought she had only been away from the car for 10 to 15 minutes.

“While defendant’s conduct is irresponsible, it does not rise to the egregious level of conduct necessary to show culpable negligence,” Kelly wrote. “This was a single isolated incident of what may be deemed poor parental judgement that resulted in defendant's arrest on Felony Child Neglect charges.”

Kelly noted that Motalava would have to undergo “proper child safety education” following the incident.

In 2024, 13 children have already died as a result of being left in hot cars, according to the non-profit group Kids and Car Safety.

Earlier this month, a New Jersey father was charged in the death of his eight-week-old daughter after allegedly leaving her in a hot car “for an extended period of time.”

The father, Avraham Chaitovsky, 28, was allegedly attending services at a local synagogue while his child remained behind in the car, according to News 12.

He was charged on Tuesday with endangering the welfare of a child, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

In late June a man in Florida was arrested for the death of his girlfriend's six-year-old daughter who died after he allegedly left her in a car while he went to work. The girl was left in the car for approximately three hours.

Paramedics who treated the girl noted that her internal body temperature was 107.2 degrees fahrenheit.

Markise Outing, 24, has been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child and was booked into a Manatee County Jail.

Earlier in June, an infant died in Santee, California – 18 miles northeast of San Diego – after the two-month-old was left in a car for nine hours, FOX 5 San Diego reports.

On June 12, the infant’s family returned to their home around 3pm but allegedly left the child in their car. Shortly after midnight on June 13, the family found the infant unconscious inside their vehicle.

Santee Sheriff's Station deputies responded to a 911 call at the home after receiving a 911 call around 12.30am and attempted life-saving measures before rushing the infant to a local hospital. No criminal charges have been brought against the infant's family as of June 26.

A study by Kids and Car Safety that looked at data from 1990 to 2023 showed at least 1,083 children have died in hot cars in the US over that period.

Texas saw 155 child hot car deaths in that period, Florida was second with 118 deaths, and California was third with 65 deaths.