Eight months after two young children died in Kerrville after being left alone in a hot car for 15 hours, their father has been doubly charged with manslaughter, injury to a child, and child abandonment, the San Antonio Express-News first reported.
The charges against 17-year-old Kevin Franke follow the initial charges against Amanda Hawkins, the children’s 19-year-old mother, who was indicted on two counts of abandoning and endangering a child back in August.
According to the Kerr County Sheriff’s office, Hawkins knowingly left her daughters, 1-year-old Brynn Hawkins and 2-year-old Addyson Overgard-Eddy, in a car parked in front of a Kerrville home late one Tuesday night in June 2017, where the girls remained until noon the following day. Hawkins was inside the house a few yards away the entire time.
Hawkins told authorities she was initially hesitant to take to the girls to the hospital “because she did not want to get in trouble,” according to Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer. Eventually, she and Franke took the girls to Kerrville’s Peterson Regional Medical Center, where they were immediately transported to San Antonio’s University Hospital.
The girls were in grave condition, and died less than 48 hours after they were left in the car.
Hawkins initially told medical staff the girls had collapsed after smelling flowers at nearby Flat Rock Lake Park — but after Child Protective Services and the sheriff’s office investigated the matter, it became clear that wasn’t the case.
According to Hierholzer, one of the witnesses inside the home with Hawkins had even suggested that she bring the girls inside — meaning at least two people were aware of the situation, and did not step in.
“The fact that she did this intentionally to two beautiful girls is unimaginable. This is the most horrific case we have ever had to deal with here,” Hierholzer said in August.
Franke was certified by a judge to be prosecuted as an adult if he is indicted, and Kerr County Attorney Heather Stebbins plans to bring up misdemeanor charges against five other adults connected to the deaths, according the the Express-News.
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