Prosecutor: No criminal negligence in baby's death

ST. LOUIS -- The parents of a 7-month-old girl who was found dead in the heat of a parked car last month are not criminally negligent, a city prosecutor said Tuesday, although they demonstrated "questionable parenting and communication skills" that day.

Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said she did not have enough evidence to prove criminal negligence beyond a reasonable doubt, "and that is the legal threshold for charging this crime."

Sophia Knutsen of suburban St. Louis died Aug. 23 when she was left in her parents' car in a parking lot at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Her father, Russell Knutsen, and her mother, pediatrician Beth Ann Kozel, miscommunicated about who was taking the child to day care.

The child was left with Knutsen, but he believed his wife had the child. He didn't see her because she was in the back seat in a rear-facing child seat.

The mother is a genetics resident at St. Louis Children's Hospital. The father is a senior medical researcher at the medical school laboratory.

The incident happened on a day when temperatures rose into the 90s. The child had been in the car for three hours before a passerby spotted her and broke out the car window, but too late to save the baby. The temperature inside the car reached at least 119 degrees.

Joyce said that to prove criminal negligence beyond a reasonable doubt, she would have to establish that Knutsen knew the child was in his care when he parked the car.

An "exhaustive investigation" by police and prosecutors did not provide that evidence, and so, the case doesn't meet the state's standard for criminal negligence, Joyce said.

Given the strong emotions surrounding the case, Joyce said she fully expects her decision will be met with both support and criticism.

"However, public opinion does not determine how cases in this office are charged," she said in a statement. "We make charging decisions based solely upon the law."

The couple's attorney, Art Margulis, said Tuesday that Joyce's decision is clearly supported by case law and statutes.

"They are very much relieved by the decision," he said, "... but it hasn't changed the real problem they're living with daily."

Margulis said Kozel left the couple's home with Sophia and picked up her husband at the lab. They traded places and he drove her three blocks to the hospital, then parked the car back at the lab.

Kozel thought her husband would take Sophia to the hospital's on-site day care, Margulis said, but he didn't hear her tell him the baby was in the back seat.

The couple, who also have a 5-year-old son, do not blame each other for Sophia's death, Margulis said.

Joyce recently filed charges against a day care provider accused of leaving a child on a van during a field trip.

In that case, the woman knew she had children on the van and failed to make sure they were off of it, she said.

In baby Sophia's case, the father had no idea she was in the car.

Joyce said she received lots of emotional emails from constituents, who were evenly divided on whether Sophia's parents should be prosecuted.

Joyce read the emails, and responded to many of them, but they didn't sway her.

"We make decisions based on facts in the law, not emotions," she said.

Sophia's was the 23rd death of a child left in a hot vehicle in the U.S. this year, according to an expert who tracks the phenomenon. Since her death a little over a month ago, 10 more U.S. children have died from being left in hot vehicles.

The average annual number is 36, said Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Francisco State University. A total of 355 children have died since data began being collected in 1998. "It's an epidemic," he said.

Joyce has prosecuted parents of children who died in enclosed spaces. Both prosecutions took place in 2001.