An Alabama mother is suing several state workers after her three-year-old son died after being left in a hot car for hours.
On July 22, Ke’Torrius “KJ” Starkes was locked inside a car for approximately five hours. The driver, 54-year-old Kela Stanford, told police she had forgotten the boy was inside, according to the Birmingham Police Department.
KJ’s mother, Ethanlynn Stewart, didn’t have custody of him at the time. She has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford, her employer, and several employees of the Alabama Department of Human Resources (ADHR) and the Jefferson County Department of Human Resources. She claims they were all responsible for KJ’s safety that day.
KJ was in foster care, and Stanford was supposed to take him back to daycare after a supervised visit with his father. Stanford did not work directly for the state; rather, she worked for Covenant Services, Inc., which had a contract with the ADHR to transport foster children.
The lawsuit alleges that after picking up KJ, Stanford went grocery shopping and then home to put away her groceries, leaving KJ in the car each time. Later, she allegedly went to a tobacco store and left him in the car. She arrived home about 12:30 p.m. and went inside, leaving KJ in the car.
According to the lawsuit, the heat index exceeded 105 degrees that day, and with black-tinted windows, the inside of the car could have reached temperatures higher than 140 degrees.
Around 5:30 p.m., Stanford received a call asking why KJ hadn’t been returned to daycare. She went to her car and discovered him unresponsive and still strapped into his seat. Birmingham Fire and Rescue pronounced him dead at 6:03 p.m.
G. Courtney French, KJ’s mother’s lawyer, described it as “a brutal death” and stated that no one from the state or county departments had contacted her since her son’s death.
Stanford was fired following the incident. On August 1, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office charged her with leaving a child unattended in a motor vehicle, a felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison. She was arrested the same day and later released on bail.
The lawsuit also accuses supervisors and state workers of failing to notice that KJ had been absent from daycare for more than five hours.
