A Houston daycare owner is facing charges of child endangerment after allegedly leaving five children in a hot car. Domonique Wilson, who runs a home daycare service called My Lil Angels, appeared in court where she was charged with five counts of endangering a child, a felony in Texas. According to reports by Click2Houston, one of the children left in the car was eight years old, making the incident a case of placing the minors in imminent danger.
It was at a Kroger store parking lot off Telephone Road where the children were discovered in distress, with the car not running and the window barely cracked. "There are five children who were endangered, found red-faced in distress, crying," a hearing officer said. Records indicate that Wilson has been operating her daycare for over three years, seemingly out of her apartment. Despite this incident, Wilson reportedly has no history of compliance issues with state licensing, based on the last report conducted in April, as detailed by ABC13.
The seriousness of the issue was highlighted by a warning from the Texas Department of State Health Services issued last month about the risks of leaving children in parked cars. After the death of a 9-year-old girl in a hot car, the state has seen an increase in similar fatalities, with this year’s total already exceeding the number recorded for all of 2024. This has prompted advocacy groups like Kids and Car Safety to forcefully remind the public that a child's body temperature rises significantly faster than an adult's, and “there's no safe amount of time for a child to be alone in a vehicle no matter what,” Amber Rollins, director of the organization, told ABC13.
Rollins highlighted the importance of establishing safety habits, pointing out that this month is frequently one of the most dangerous for hot car incidents. She urged parents and caregivers to consistently check their vehicles, saying, "Create a habit of opening that back door and checking the backseat every single time you leave your vehicle," ABC13 reported.
