Launice Shanique Battle, a mother from Cary, North Carolina, was sent to state prison on July 25 for leaving her two children alone in a parked car for hours in scorching weather, which led to their passing.
The woman, who is now 30 years old, has received a sentence between 94 and 125 months for leaving her two young girls unattended in the vehicle for more than six hours.
Reduced Sentence
Judge Rebecca W. Holt at Wake County Superior Court was the one who handed down the sentence this Thursday.
Initially, Battle was sentenced to over 80 years in prison after receiving her two counts of murder charges.
The horrendous incident happened in 2022, on August 27, a day with “hot” weather “with a high temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit with skies varying from partly to mostly cloudy with some light rain,” according to the autopsy report.
The entrapped girls, identified as two-year-old Trinity Milbourne and three-year-old Amora Milbourne, respectively, perished in the back seat of the car while their mother was gambling at Raleigh’s Vegas Style Sweepstakes gaming property.
The North Carolina judge decided to approve a reduced prison sentence of between seven and 10+ years after the gambler agreed to plead guilty and “accept responsibility” for her “criminal conduct,” as per data from court documents.
Under her plea deal, Battle pled guilty to just one second-degree murder count.
Disturbing Autopsy Report
The incident was reported to the authorities after Battle took her daughters to Duke Raleigh Hospital after she exited the casino and found they were unresponsive.
The doctors that proceeded to examine the girls discovered their bodies had already started to decompose and none of them had a body temperature.
The physicians declared them dead, naming hyperthermia as the cause of death in the official autopsy report.
Battle, who was arrested one day after the incident, was defended by cousin Keisha Harris during an interview for North Carolina TV station WRAL.
Harris described her cousin as “a caring and loving mother to her kids at the end of the day” and “not a cold-blooded murderer.”
Raleigh, N.C.-based newspaper The News & Observer reported that Child Protective Services had previously investigated Battle three times in the past, between 2019 and 2022.
Amora, who was born premature, suffered from several ailments, including congenital heart disease and chromosome deletion. She also had a gastrostomy tube and was repeatedly hospitalized after suffering a cerebellar stroke.
In June 2021, 39-year-old Michael Hooks was put under arrest and charged with child abuse in North Las Vegas after police said he entered Bighorn Casino to gamble for half an hour while his six-month infant son was left in a sweltering car.
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