Fernando Ivan Perez Renteria, who works for an electronics firm in Guadalajara’s Colonia Higuerillas, was meant to drop his son off at the nursery last Friday morning, but he forgot, and left the infant in the vehicle.
It wasn’t until eight hours later, at around 4.20 p.m, that a security guard working for the company discovered that there was a baby, apparently asleep, in a child’s seat in the back of Renteria’s grey Mazda.
A receptionist made a loudspeaker announcement, and Renteria ran out to his car. Upon opening the vehicle, he found that his son was not reacting. An ambulance was called, but the paramedics announced that the baby had died of asphyxiation about five hours earlier.
Renteria was arrested on site, and it seemed likely that he would face a charge of involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of eight years of prison.
For this to happen, however, Renteria’s wife would have had to formally press charges, which she declined to do.
Investigators determined that Renteria had committed no crime as the baby’s body displayed no signs of injury.