A Florida grandmother has been charged with aggravated manslaughter in the hot car death of her granddaughter less than a year after her grandson drowned while she was babysitting him.
Tracey Nix, 65, is accused of leaving her 7-month-old granddaughter, Uriel Schock, in an SUV with the windows rolled up while she practiced piano inside her home last November, according to Hardee County Sheriff’s Office complaint affidavit obtained by WFTS.
According to investigators, Nix, a former school principal in Hardee County, said she “just forgot” about the baby, according to the affidavit. Nix said she didn’t remember she left the child in the car after she returned home from lunch with friends.
She said she remembered the baby was in the SUV after another grandchild arrived at the home later in the day, according to WFTS reports.
Nix’s husband found the child in the SUV and attempted CPR, but the child died.
It wasn’t the first time that Nix had been babysitting when a grandchild died. In December 2021, Nix’s 16-month-old grandson died after he wandered off and drowned in a pond on her property after she fell asleep while watching him, according to police.
That child, Ezra Schock, was Uriel’s brother.
Grandma charged after 2 grandkids die in her care less than a year apart https://t.co/OIiYs06UtN pic.twitter.com/5kAjM0b8Vu
— New York Post (@nypost) March 30, 2023
Kaila Nix, the children’s mother, said at first, she did not trust her mother to watch Uriel after Ezra’s death, but she said she let the elder Nix babysit Uriel because she believed in second chances.
“We were anxious, but I loved my mother. And I am a daughter that wanted her mom,” she told WFTS. “When I was told that Ezra’s death was an accident, some sliver child part of me thought, ‘OK. Good, I get to keep this mom, this grandmother.’”
Police attempted to file a child neglect charge against Nix in Ezra’s death, but the State Attorney’s Office declined to press charges because of “insufficient evidence.”
Kaila Nix said she was not aware of the potential charges. She said she was not told about it because she was six months pregnant with Uriel.
“I was believing that I was leaving my children at any point with a master’s degree holding, well-educated, well respected, Sunday school teaching, choir singing social person. I believed that surely, I must be making this other thing with Ezra too much. The sheriff’s office said it, DCF told us. Everyone did,” Kaila Nix, told WTVT.
Drew Schock, the children’s father, told WFTS that he remembers being in the parking lot outside the hospital after Uriel’s death “trying to grasp what just happened. And that it actually ... just happened twice in our lifetime.”
As to what consequences Nix should face, Schock and Kaila Nix agree.
“She needs to go to prison,” Kaila told WFTS. “As her daughter, it kills me to say it. As their mother, I demand it.”
“I can’t forgive it. Absolutely not. As a father, I can’t. I don’t even think I can as a Christian,” Schock told WTVT. “I don’t know if I could do that, because it’s our children and our job as a parent is to protect our children. The guilt that we have as parents that we failed. Because that’s our only job.”
If convicted, Nix could face between 12 and 30 years in prison.
