A Texas mother is in jail nearly a year after allegedly abandoning her 11-week-old baby boy in her car for over three hours in temps in the mid-90s.
Gabriela Elizabeth Deras, 22, is charged with murder in the death of her son, Ethan Rosa Deras, according to a Houston police press release. According to a probable cause arrest document, Deras drove Ethan and her 3-year-old son, N.V., to her mental health clinic appointment at noon on August 8, 2023. Deras only took the older son inside the clinic after she departed her automobile. Police say the temperature was around 95 degrees with a heat index of nearly 100 degrees.
After nearly three hours, she returned to the car to discover the baby frothing at the mouth and not breathing, according to the affidavit. She rushed him inside for help, and first responders arrived on the scene. Paramedics transported him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He had a temperature of 108 degrees.
In an interview with cops, Deras stated that she couldn’t recall “too much stuff.” Deras then provided authorities with contradicting information, such as different times she arrived at the clinic and initially claiming she took Ethan out of the car before confessing she never did, investigators stated.
“She said that N.V. was with her and she did not know where the complainant was at that point,” the investigators claimed.
When they asked Deras if Ethan was in the car for the full three hours, she reportedly answered, “I think so.”
“She then said her car was turned on the entire time that she was inside of the Harris Center,” according to the witness statement. “She also said the air conditioner was left on level three with the windows up while the vehicle was running.”
However, when she returned the automobile, it was not running, according to police. She opened the door, and her older son entered and said, “The baby,” according to the affidavit. Ethan appeared to have died.
Deras initially indicated that she had left the infant by accident, but she also believed he was at home with his grandmother, according to authorities. She was “inconsistent as she went back and forth with different responses to questions she had already been asked,” investigators stated. She later allegedly claimed that the automobile was not running when she left it.
Detectives spoke with Deras’ mother, who said she volunteered to watch the children, but her daughter declined. An autopsy determined that Ethan died of hyperthermia, with the mode of death being homicide. Investigators found that a “reasonable person would have believed that leaving a child, unattended in a hot car, would place the complainant in imminent danger of death and bodily injury,” according to the affidavit.
Deras was arrested on Friday and sent to the Harris County Jail, where she is held on a $50,000 bail. She has a court date planned for October 16.