An Alaska girl, 3, is dead after she and her 1-year-old sister were locked in their -30 degree bedroom for wetting the bed. The rest of the story is after the jump.
A three-year-old girl from America’s northernmost community died and her younger sister suffered hypothermia after their mother and the mother’s boyfriend left them in a locked bedroom with a window open to a temperature of minus 30 degrees to air out the room because the girls wet their beds, authorities said.
The mother, 28-year-old elementary teacher Esther G. Edwards-Gust, was apparently on the lam Saturday, a day after she and 29-year-old Richard Tilden Jr. were indicted in the child’s death. Tilden was in custody.
The couple shared a home with Edwards-Gust’s 1- and 3-year-old daughters in the Inupiat Eskimo community of Barrow.
Police say the two girls last month were trapped overnight in their bedroom with a window open to temperatures that dropped to 30 degrees below zero.Â
Both children were diagnosed with extreme hypothermia and flown to an Anchorage hospital, where the three-year-old died.
Tilden later told authorities he’d been drinking the night before and opened the bedroom window to air out the room because the girls wet their beds, according to court documents.Â
He also said the door’s latch was broken, making it impossible for anyone inside the room to open it.
A grand jury on Friday indicted Tilden and Edwards-Gust on charges including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Tilden also faces second-degree murder and assault charges. He was arrested last month.
