The father of a child who died after being found unresponsive in a vehicle in the unincorporated View Park community near South Los Angeles was being held Thursday in lieu of $2 million bail.
Deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Marina del Rey Station responded about 3:10 p.m. Tuesday to the 300 block of Chanson Drive, north of Slauson Avenue and east of Crenshaw Boulevard, after receiving a report of a child not breathing, officials said.
“Los Angeles County Fire Department personnel also responded and pronounced the child deceased at the scene,” according to a sheriff’s department statement.
The child was identified Wednesday by the county medical examiner as 1-year-old Maeve Blankeley-Johnson. No cause of death was listed.
The sheriff’s department has not stated whether the child was left in a hot car, but the activist group Kids and Car Safety reported that the girl was the 29th hot car-related death in the U.S. and fifth in California this year.
Edwin Johnson, 40, of View Park, was initially arrested Tuesday on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and child neglect, the sheriff’s department reported.
According to online jail records, he was released on bond after posting $25,000 bail. However, a new record indicates he was arrested again Wednesday morning, booked on suspicion of murder and was being held at the sheriff’s Marina del Rey Station in lieu of $2 million bail.
A representative for the District Attorney’s Office said that as of Thursday afternoon that no criminal charges had yet been filed against Johnson, despite an earlier statement to the contrary by the sheriff’s department.
The Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, detectives from the Marina del Rey Station and the medical examiner’s office were continuing to investigate the child’s death.
Anyone with information about the fatality was urged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.