Charges Reduced for Woman Who Left Kids to Die in Car

Tarajee S. Maynor, the infamous mother who spent the day in a beauty salon while her two small children suffered and died inside a sweltering car in the parking lot has had her charges reduced from murder to felony manslaughter.

That really pisses me off. The maximum time she could do now is fifteen years. Think about this...while her kids were outside vomiting, suffocating, convulsing and finally dying, Miss Maynor was spending the afternoon in an air-conditioned salon getting a massage, trying on a sun dress, studying and having her hair done. Here's the kicker: she did, in fact, leave the salon at one point - to get a drink and snack for herself.

Her attorneys say she's on suicide watch and is wracked with guilt over what she's done but you have to wonder if she's upset because of what happened to her children or if she's merely anguished over the thought of her impending jail time.

I can't help but think that had the police believed her story about her being abducted and raped - she would be walking around guiltlessly without a care in the world. Perhaps the saddest part of this story is the fact that Maynor is currently pregnant with another child.

Sorry to bring down the normally light-spirited mood of this page, this is just something that really bothers me. I've heard I don't know how many cases of people leaving kids unattended in hot cars this year and it just seems incredible that anyone could be so completely ignorant and unthinking as to leave their kids unattended in a parking lot, regardless of the weather. Even if she didn't have the common sense to know it could kill them, wouldn't a normal, caring mother be worried her children could be kidnapped or something? It's just inexcusable and fifteen years (probably reduced to five or six, eventually) seems like a small price for her to pay for their senseless deaths.

(Update, July 15, 2002: I was just reading the news and found that Maynor abandoned a third child back in 2000, leaving her at Bethany Christian Services, a private adoption agency in Madison Heights, for 53 days. Once prosecuters get more documention of the matter, they may be able to use it in a new trial.)