A Hagerstown grandmother has been found guilty of child neglect after her 7-year-old grandson fell from the rear window of her moving car onto Interstate 97 in Millersville, where he was struck and killed by a passing vehicle. Lorraine Marie O'Neill, 68, was driving northbound on I-97 in November 2024 with her grandson secured in a car seat on the rear passenger side when the boy fell from the vehicle's rear window and landed in the roadway near Benfield Boulevard.
According to WBFF, officials reported that O'Neill had allowed the child to play with the car's rear power window, and the window's child lock had not been activated at the time of the incident. Maryland State Police troopers were dispatched to I-97 near Benfield Boulevard around 7:00 p.m. that evening, and Arundel County Fire and EMS responders pronounced the boy deceased at the scene. An approaching vehicle struck the child shortly after he landed on the highway.
Perhaps the most jarring detail to emerge from the case is how long it took for O'Neill to realize her grandson was gone. Officials reported that she did not notice the child was missing from his car seat until she was driving on I-695 near Route 2, roughly 11 miles north of where he fell. She then pulled over at the nearest gas station.
Prosecutors Frame the Case Around Accountability
Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said O'Neill traveled 11 miles north on I-97 after the child fell before realizing her grandson was not inside the car. Leitess said the case concerns accountability for the death of a child, adding that adults must remain vigilant when children are in their care.
O'Neill was found guilty of neglect of a minor under Maryland Criminal Law Code § 3-602.1, which, per Justia, defines neglect as an intentional failure to provide necessary assistance and resources for a minor's physical needs that creates a substantial risk of harm. The misdemeanor statute applies to parents, family members, or caregivers with temporary custody or supervision of a minor. O'Neill faces a maximum penalty of five years' incarceration and a $5,000 fine, with sentencing scheduled for October 2, 2026.
A Separate Hit-and-Run Investigation Remains Unresolved
The vehicle that struck the child after he landed on I-97 fled the scene, and its driver has not been identified. Investigators from the Maryland State Police Glen Burnie Barrack, which serves as the primary agency handling serious traffic crashes and hit-and-run cases across Anne Arundel County's state highways, previously sought a 2016 to 2019 Honda Civic with suspected damage to its front left wheel well, as reported by the Daily Voice at the time of the original crash. That search remains an open question in the case even as the neglect prosecution against O'Neill has concluded.
The crash occurred on a stretch of I-97 that Hoodline has previously reported on in the days after the boy's death. The 17.6-mile corridor connecting Annapolis to Glen Burnie carries heavy commuter traffic, with posted speed limits up to 65 mph on its northern stretches near Millersville, making any ejection onto the roadway especially dangerous.
Child Passenger Safety Rules and Window Risks
Maryland's Child Passenger Safety Law, updated in October 2022, requires children under age 8 or under 4 feet 9 inches tall to ride in an appropriate child safety restraint system, and places legal responsibility on the driver for securing all passengers under age 16. State highway safety data compiled by Zero Deaths Maryland shows that proper car seat and booster seat use reduces the risk of fatal injury in crashes by 54% for toddlers and 71% for infants, though child safety partners estimate that 59% of car seats nationwide are installed improperly.
National safety organizations including Safe Kids Worldwide have warned that electric power windows pose significant risks to young children, who can easily activate control buttons and cause accidental falls if window lockout features are disengaged. Those lockout switches are standard in most modern vehicles specifically to prevent children in rear seats from operating the windows themselves.
The same stretch of I-97 near Millersville has drawn attention for other reasons in recent months. In July, extreme summer heat caused the northbound lanes near Brightview Drive to buckle, forcing emergency closures on the corridor, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of the resulting holiday traffic disruptions. Local sentencing patterns in comparable vehicular fatality cases have varied; one Anne Arundel County hit-and-run case in June 2024 resulted in a 10-year sentence with all but 18 months suspended, according to a since-shared court account, illustrating the discretion judges have exercised in similar prosecutions.
O'Neill, who lives in Hagerstown, is scheduled to be sentenced on October 2, 2026. The identity of the driver who struck the boy after he fell remains unknown.
