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A mom who left her two young daughters inside a sweltering hot car while she gambled inside a casino has now been jailed for their murders.
Launice Battle, 31, from Wake County, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in the deaths of Trinity Milbourne, two, and her sister Amora, three.
On Thursday, she was sentenced to serve between just under eight and 10 and a half years in a state correctional facility.
Back on 27 August 2022, Battle drove to the casino Vegas Style Sweepstakes in Raleigh and left her children in the car while she went inside.
The vehicle was parked only partially in the shade, while outside temperatures soared to 95F (35C).
The children were left there for around six hours from 2.30pm until she finally returned at 8.30pm that evening, according to an autopsy report first obtained by WNCN.
Upon her return, she found the two toddlers unresponsive and drove them to Duke Raleigh Emergency Department in Wake Forest.
They were pronounced dead that evening with an autopsy ruling hyperthermia as the cause and Battle was arrested for murder.
A medical report stated that the girls had “no body temperature” when they were discovered and their remains were in stages of “mild [body] decomposition”.
Battle’s grandmother Dr Ruth Allen said the family hadn’t heard from her in two weeks prior to the murders.
Then, on the night of the children’s death, Battle’s boyfriend called looking for her.
“He was asking us where she was at, have we seen her? Was she here?,” Dr Allen told CBS 17 following her 2022 arrest.
“I told her, no we haven’t seen her. He said, ‘I don’t know. Something ain’t right.’”
She said that Amora had been under her care for two of her three years after “social services gave her to me”.
Battle had been investigated by Child Protective Services three times before the children’s deaths, the most recent instance taking place less than two months before the toddlers died, records show.
But Battle’s cousin Keisha Harris claimed that her actions were just a “careless mistake” and that she was a “caring and loving mother.”
“She’s a caring and loving mother to her kids at the end of the day,” she told WRAL. “She’s not a cold-blooded murderer. She’s not a killer.”
Battle was initially charged with two counts of felony murder and faced over 80 years in prison.
But, she later agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges.
The judge ruled that her willingness to “accept responsibility” for her actions meant that “a mitigated sentence is justified” and she was credited with 667 days time served, court records show.
