Three children were discovered alone inside a parked Jeep outside Seminole Classic Casino in Hollywood early Sunday, sweating with the windows up and the engine off, while their parents gambled inside. Lillian Mun, 32, and Terrence Wright, 42, were arrested after security staff found the children around 1 a.m. and called for help.
According to NBC 6 South Florida, the children had no access to food or water and no phone to call their parents while locked inside the vehicle. Paramedics responded to the casino parking lot in Hollywood to check on the three kids, and the outlet reported they were evaluated and determined not to need medical attention.
Accounts differ on exactly how long the children were left by themselves. WSVN reported that Mun told officers she had been inside the car with the children when the engine turned off, and said she went into the casino to retrieve the vehicle keys from her fiancé, estimating she was inside for approximately 20 minutes. But the same report said a security-camera review showed the parents had left the children alone for an hour, with the pair appearing to be playing a slot machine together during that time, according to the arrest report cited by the station.
Charges and Bond Decisions
Mun and Wright were booked on charges that included child neglect and leaving children unattended in a motor vehicle, the station's report notes. At bond court Monday, Broward Judge Allison Gilman said Wright was charged with three counts of child neglect, according to WSVN. A judge denied Mun's bond entirely, while Wright's bond was set at $22,500, per the same account.
The children were released to a family friend of Mun's as of late Monday afternoon, and the Department of Children and Families was notified, the station's report states. All three were reported to be okay following the ordeal.
A Pattern Seen Nationwide
Cases like this one fit into a troubling national trend. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 39 children died after being left in hot cars in 2024, up from 29 the year before, according to The Journalist's Resource. Data collected from 1998 to 2024 show that almost three-fourths of children who died of vehicular heatstroke were 2 years old or younger, and that 53% had been forgotten in parked cars while 24% got into a vehicle on their own, per the outlet's review of the research.
Florida ranks among the 10 states where pediatric vehicular heatstroke has been most common in that same dataset, The Journalist's Resource reports. A separate study of 541 child deaths in hot vehicles between 2000 and 2016 found that authorities pursued criminal charges in 58% of cases, the outlet notes, underscoring that prosecution in incidents like the one outside Seminole Classic Casino is far from unusual.
Under Florida's child neglect statute, the Florida Senate's published code describes neglect as conduct that can be based on repeated acts or on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury or a substantial risk of death to a child. That statutory language does not by itself determine how the law will be applied in the Hollywood case, which remains before the court.
