BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – A woman accused of leaving a 10-month-old she was babysitting in a hot car for five hours testified in her own defense Thursday as she faces trial on charges of negligent homicide and child neglect.
Rhonda Jewell, 46, is accused in the death of 10-month-old Ariya Paige in Baker County in July 2023.
Investigators said Paige was left unattended in an SUV for five hours on a summer day when the temperature reached over 100 degrees.
Jewell admitted that when the baby‘s mother, Brooke Paige, came to pick her up, she realized she’d left Ariya in the SUV.
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“That‘s when I realized I didn’t get that baby out of the car,” Jewell said through tears on the stand Thursday. “I forgot the baby in the car...and I ran to the car and I opened up the door and she was still there. Ariya was still in the backseat.”
Jewell told the court she started watching children as a babysitter when she was 17 years old but took a break after she had children of her own.
She said she didn’t start babysitting again until 2017 and that she cared for the children she babysat as if they were her own.
“I loved her like she was my own,” Jewell said of her relationship with Ariya.
She said she saw Ariya’s grandmother, Monique Carter, as her best friend and spoke of her relationship with Ariya‘s mother, Brooke.
“I was there for baby showers, weddings. I gravitated to her, just like any baby,” Jewell said.
A detective who arrived at the hospital where Ariya was taken talked about the child’s condition.d
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He said she was kept in a climate-controlled environment but despite efforts to cool her body down, Ariya’s internal and external temperature was above 100 degrees.
He said when he interviewed Jewell, she told him she forgot to take Ariya out of the SUV because she was distracted by thoughts regarding a family event.
A medical examiner said the child died from hyperthermia, and a firefighter who testified said the temperature in the SUV was 133 degrees.
Closing arguments in the trial are expected Friday.
In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill named for Ariya declaring April “Hot Car Death Prevention Month.”