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Baby dies in hot car months after 16-month-old brother drowns in grandmother's house

Published Mar 31, 2023 9:28 pm

Kaila Schock still couldn't believe that she would lose her kids too soon and more so, while they were under the care of her own mother.

Kaila is the mother of seven-month-old Uriel and 16-month-old Ezra, who both died less than a year apart in the house of her mom, Tracey Nix, in Hardee County in Florida, USA.

The most recent incident of the two involved the infant Uriel, who Kaila left to her mom on November 22, as she had to get her hair done that day.

The tragedy began when Nix, 65, drove home from lunch with her friends that day. and "just forgot" her granddaughter in the back seat of an SUV parked in her yard, with the windows rolled up.

Nix and baby Uriel (CNN)

According to the Hardee County Sheriff's Office complaint affidavit, the grandmother "all of a sudden" remembered that the infant was left inside the Lexus vehicle in the afternoon, when her grandsons arrived at her residence.

The city's heat index that day reached 32C, according to a 7 News report. 

The infant was immediately given CPR by Nix's husband, Nun Ney Nix.

Kaila received the news of her daughter's sudden demise through a representative of the Hardee County Sheriff’s Office who showed up at her house.

Speaking to ABC Action News I-Team, the mother of two recalled the rep saying, "Your baby is dead," to which she replied, "I'm sorry, what? I know Ezra's dead. Why are you here, like what—what is this?"

"No Kaila, your baby, is dead," he confirmed.

The couple then identified their daughter at the hospital, with Kaila's husband, Drew Schock, left trying to grasp what just happened.

“To think of the last moments of her life as a mother is gut-wrenching,” Kaila told the outlet.

“And that it actually just f****** happened twice. In our lifetime,” Drew added.

The incident has devasted the couple, leaving Kyla in a state of disbelief that it was her own mother's actions that led to all this. 

“It’s really difficult to know that my mum is the one that, you know, broke his (Drew's) heart,” Kaila said. “You know, my mum.”

Losing Ezra in 2021

Uriel's untimely demise came almost a year since her older brother Ezra passed away in December 2021. He drowned in a pond near her grandmother's house while she was asleep.

Drew told I-Team that Kaila's father broke the news to him via phone call three days before Christmas that year.

“He goes, ‘Something happened to Ezra’,” Drew recalled hearing Nun Ney tell him before he proceeded to call Kaila, who was six months pregnant at that time.

Kaila, for her part, drove to her parents' home as fast as she could, which consequently led her into a head-on collision with another vehicle.

She recalled, “All of my airbags went off, I don’t remember how I got out, but I got out and started running to my parent’s house and at this point, I don’t have shoes. I’m just running."

“That was my desperation to get to my son," she added.

Kaila and Drew's 16-month-old son Ezra (CNN)

During the investigation on her son's death, Kaila revealed that the doctor "withheld information" that would be "emotionally distressful" for her and her unborn child.

She continued, “And I knew in that moment that as much as I loved him, that she was a real life, and she was coming, and it would be wrong of me to lose her over him and hurt her and take her."

Although she was disheartened, Kaila didn't close her doors to her mother just yet.

“We were anxious, but I loved my mother, and I am a daughter that wanted her mum in her life in some capacity, and in that moment, I thought that I could believe in second chances,” she said.

“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 mum. This grandmother. This person.’”

'I will fight for them'

Apart from wanting to give her mother the benefit of the doubt, Kaila and Drew weren't able to file charges against Nix over their son's death. A deputy told Kaila that it would have been possible if it can be proven that Nix intentionally held her son's head underwater to kill him.

“In cases involving the accidental drowning of a toddler, Florida appellate courts have stated that a one-time lapse of judgment would not establish culpable negligence of the caretaker," the State Attorney Office of Hardee County said in a statement sent to I-Team.

“(However, if the caretaker was shown to have repeatedly allowed the toddler access to the water hazard and not taken steps to prevent, that would establish culpable negligence)."

Drew, Kaila, and Uriel (CNN)

The couple, however, filed charges against Kaila's mother following the death of their daughter Uriel.

“In the 2021 incident, there was insufficient evidence to establish culpable negligence," the statement reads. "The 2022 incident is factually distinguishable and charges have been filed."

Nix, on the other hand, will not be making any public statement, according to her lawyer William Fletcher. He said, however, that the grandmother is "totally devasted" by the deaths of her grandchildren.

With all things considered, Kaila is holding her ground and dead set on filing charges against her mother.

“If I’m objective—she needs to go to prison. As her daughter, it kills me to say it. As their mother, I demand it,” she said. “I will fight for them.”

If Nix is proven guilty, she will be punished with imprisonment from 12 to 30 years.