A Georgia nurse is facing charges after police say she forgot her 1-year-old in a hot, locked vehicle.
Deja Coleman, 29, was arrested on July 29. Lawrenceville police said she was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children.
According to investigators, Coleman was on her way to work as a nurse earlier that same day. She reportedly had dropped off her other two children at day care but forgot about her 1-year-old son, Daniel.
Coleman got to Northside Gwinnett Hospital around 6:50 a.m. She left her toddler in the car, according to investigators.
Officers were called to the hospital parking lot around 3:30 p.m. after receiving reports of an unresponsive child locked in a vehicle.
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According to investigators, the witness who reported the incident tried banging on the window to get the child’s attention, but he didn’t respond.
When officers arrived, they found Daniel, passed out in the vehicle parked in the hospital employee’s parking lot. They attempted life-saving measures, but he died in his car seat.
An hour after officers removed the child from the car, they determined the inside of the car was 117 degrees.
Officers were able to locate Coleman by running her car tag. When they told her what happened, “she was devastated.”
Her attorney, Tom Ford, argued that the incident is because of a “devastating consequence of severe sleep deprivation.”
According to Ford, Coleman had medical-grade exhaustion when she forgot her child. She had also been working 9-hour days as a Certified Nursing Aide.
“Forgotten baby syndrome is a phenomenon,” Ford told Atlanta Black Star. “The courts don’t understand the science. … They think forgotten baby syndrome is junk science, which it’s not.”
Forgotten baby syndrome is when a caregiver or loved one forgets a young child in a car. Sleep deprivation is considered one of the causes of the disorder.
Demands for Policy Change
Since she’s charged with second-degree murder, Coleman faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison under Georgia law.
Ford said the law needs to change.
“I don’t take umbrage with her being arrested,” Ford said. “I don’t take umbrage with her being charged with this current statute because this current statute, I suggest, simply needs to be tweaked so it doesn’t have a minimum of a 10-year sentence. And I would suggest it needs to be tweaked so that one can get a bond under our laws as opposed to not get a bond right away.”
Ford told WXIA that he is demanding a bipartisan federal bill “to mandate standard in-car sensor technology and reform how the legal system evaluates sleep-deprivation tragedies.”
If passed, he explained that the technology would be able to sense if a child was left in the vehicle.
“The sensor will check if the little baby is even breathing,” Ford explained. “You can see it’s breathing under the blanket. So, the technology is there. We can put the sensors in our car on the rear door so you won’t back over somebody; we can put it inside the car as well.”
According to Ford, the sensor would also alert the driver by honking the horn and rolling the windows down. The sensor would then alert the driver’s cellphone if the driver walks away and dial 911.
Kids and Car Safety reported 31 child vehicular heatstroke deaths across the United States in 2025.
The state of Georgia started a “Look Again” campaign to stress that vehicular heatstroke is entirely preventable.
Safety experts recommend leaving an essential item, like a purse or employee badge, in the back seat next to a child’s car seat to build a physical reminder into daily routines.
Coleman will be back in court on Aug. 11.
