Two 3-Year-Old Twins Found Dead in Hot Car

Paula Liu
By Paula Liu
October 4, 2019US News
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Two 3-Year-Old Twins Found Dead in Hot Car
Police tape in a file photo. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

Two three-year-old twin toddlers from Hinesville, Georgia, were found dead in a hot car on the afternoon of Sept. 29, according to multiple reports.

The Hinesville police received a call around 1:42 p.m., on Sept. 29, regarding two three-year-old twins, Raelynn and Payton Keyes, who were found unresponsive in a car after having gone missing, according to a news release (pdf) issued by the City of Hinesville. After a response team was dispatched to the scene and a preliminary investigation was completed, it was determined that the two three-year-olds had passed away in the car. According to weather reports, it was approximately 92 degrees in the area at that time.

WTOC reported that the girls were found in the parked car behind a house located in the Griffin Park area. Although the children did not live in that house, they were reportedly spending a large amount of time at the house due to the connections that the foster parents have with the home owner, according to Tracey Howard, the Hinesville Police Department Captain.

The foster parents had searched for the two girls on the morning of Sept. 29, but were unable to find them, according to the news release.

“The search was expanded to the backyard and the surrounding area in the neighborhood. The foster parent returned to the home to resume the search and recheck the backyard. It was during this second search that the children were found unresponsive inside a vehicle parked in the home’s backyard,” the news release read.

“The foster parent for the children was the first person to call 911. Other members of the family, to include the person who resides at that residence, were all actively looking for the two girls, because initially, it was discovered that they were just not where they should have been inside the home,” Howard said, WTOC reported.

According to the police, it was unknown how the two of them got into the car in the first place—Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the girls were last seen being put to bed on the night of Sept. 28, and more investigation needed to be conducted in order to piece together what exactly happened to the girls. The police had gotten a search warrant to do a more thorough investigation into the house that the girls were staying in, the news release read. The investigation remains ongoing.

“We’re putting all of those pieces of that puzzle together to try and make a determination of what led to their death,” Howard said, WTOC reported.

The Hinesville Police Department worked together with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct the search. The bodies of the two girls were taken to the GBI to perform an autopsy, which revealed that the girls died from heatstroke, according to Reginald Pierce, the Liberty County Coroner, the news release read. The deaths were ruled an accident.

In addition, a GoFundMe page had been set up by the twin’s aunt, Nicole Causer, in order to pay for the girls’ headstones, as well as other funerary expenses.

According to WTOC, authorities have contacted the girls’ birth parents to let them know what happened.

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