Hot Car Deaths

There are on average 38 human hot car death in the United States each year. There are about 54 animal hot car deaths with another 450 being rescued from the dangers of being locked in a hot car. Some of those cases are prosecuted and others are deemed to be tragic accidents with no charges filed. What separates those cases? What determines the responsibility of a parent or guardian? All of the cases involve neglectful actions that led to the death of a child or children. Isn't neglect (child, adult, or animal), in and of itself, the basis for arrest? It would seem that neglect that leads to death would certainly be an arrestable offense. Here we will take a look at some cases from around the United States. You decide for yourself what determines charges in hot car death cases.

Nicole Engler: Roseburg, Oregon

Pediatric Nurse Practioner Nicole Marie Engler and her EMT husband prayed for fifteen years for a child. Nicole prayed for a chance to be a mother and was beside herself with grief month after month when it was confirmed yet again that she wasn't going to be a mom. Why then, we she finally gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, did she strap her into a car seat, drive to work, and forget her? It was an act that would end in the hot car death of 21-month-old Remington Engler in Roseburg, Oregon.

Nicole Engler arrived at her job as a Nurse Practioner at Evergreen Family Medicine in Roseburg, Oregon around eight on the morning of June 21, 2018. At four that evening, Nicole exited the doors of Evergreen Family Medicine, only to come screaming back through them moments later, her daughter's lifeless body in her arms. Though the staff at EFM did what they could to save the life of little Remington, the baby girl was ultimately transferred to Mercy Medical Center, a three-minute drive, where she was pronounced dead. At 4:17 pm, officers arrived to interview Nicole about the death of her daughter. Nicole explained that she had driven to work, leaving her daughter in her car seat because she thought she had dropped Remington at daycare that morning. Enger told police that she was lost in thought on the four-mile, ten-minute journey from her home to her place of employment. Though the route Nicole would take that morning passed right by the daycare that was to be Remington's destination that fateful day, Nicole Engler simply forgot her daughter was there. Nicole didn't just arrive at work that morning and leave at four to find her daughter deceased. Nicole left the medical office at around noon that day and drove to Dutch Brother's Coffee, a one-mile, six-minute round trip for lunch before returning to her job to finish out her day. While at Dutch Brother's Coffee, Nicole spoke with employees about Remington, and about an upcoming vacation that the family had planned to Mexico. Nicole says that she never noticed her daughter in the backseat during her lunch hour.

The temperature on that June day reached 80 degrees. The temperature inside the Honda CRV would have soared to an incredible 123 degrees in just one hour. Little Remington would have started to sweat, her heart beating faster, but weaker. Her breathing would have increased significantly. As the temperature in her body rose, the ability to cool itself would decrease and then stop altogether in short order. The blood vessels in her body would open in an effort to cool her temperature and her skin would be very dry. The body's rapid dehydration often leads to fainting, and it is in this fact that one may find solace. Her last moments were more than likely unknown to her as her body violently shut itself down.

Roseburg Police arrested Nicole Engler, charging her with second-degree manslaughter in the negligent death of 21-month-old Remington Engler. Engler was placed in a suicide-watch cell, where she begged the guards to allow her to kill herself and pulled out clumps of her own hair. During her court hearing, her attorney would argue for her release, saying that Nicole was unfairly being held in a feces-smeared suicide cell and surrounded by schizophrenics. Her bond was set and Nicole Engler was released to her family on a $50,000 bond. Two fundraisers were immediately set up, one that would benefit the Oregon Wildlife Safari in the name of Remington Engler. The other was for the legal fees of Nicole Engler.

Engler admitted that she was the one that placed Remington into the car seat that morning and drove to work, utilizing the same route she had driven six days a week for years. She admitted that she drove to Dutch Brother's Coffee for lunch, and then drove back to work, never realizing that her daughter was with her in the car. Even with her admission and evidence that Engler was the one responsible for the death of Remington, charges were dropped against Nicole and she would serve no more time in jail.

Nicole still works as a Nurse Practitioner in Roseburg, Oregon.

Tori Saltzman: Evansville, Indiana

Tori Saltzman took her German Shepperd dogs everywhere with her. She was homeless and she and her dogs depended on one another. A very happy Sadie and Jazzy accompanied their mom in August of 2022 to Walmart on the west side of Evansville, Indiana. The windows were cracked and the dogs had food and water available to them. When officers arrived, they found two panting dogs in a car that was reading an ambient inside temperature of 90 degrees. Both dogs were in fine health and safe, that is until officers attempted to remove the dogs from Saltzman's car. Both of the dogs escaped the car and ran through the heavily-traveled parking Walmart/Home Depot parking lot. When officers finally reached Saltzman, she said she had been in Walmart for 15 minutes, though surveillance footage showed the dogs had been left alone for just under two and a half hours. Saltzman was immediately placed under arrest and booked into the Vanderburgh County Jail for animal cruelty. Tori was recently in court for her ongoing prosecution where a new date for trial was set for May of 2023. The only other charge Tori has in her history is one for no seat belt. She was held on a $100 bond before being released until trial.

Dr. Andrew Tyson Dill: Evansville, Indiana

Oliver "Ollie" Charles Dill was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Tyson Dill on June 26, 2016. Just three short years later, on July 19, 2019, his father would strap him into his car seat, drive to work, and forget him, leaving little Ollie to succumb to the effects of hyperthermia and finding him dead hours later.

The day Oliver was left to die a violent and painful death in the back of his father's car, his mother Jamie was at home with her and Andrew's oldest son preparing for a family vacation. Jamie said she checked the daycare app and that it showed Oliver had not been checked in for the day, nor did the app show that Oliver had eaten anything. Jamie dismissed that information as an app failure and continued with her day. She didn't mention what she found on the daycare app until just before Andrew was set to come home for the evening. I'm one hundred percent positive that had Jamie stopped preparing for the upcoming vacation and simply picked up the phone to call the daycare after the app showed he hadn't been checked in for the day, things would have turned out differently. A quick phone call very well could have saved the life of her child after his father neglected to remember that he had a human life in the back seat of his car.

Dill's original story to responding officers was, "I thought I had dropped him off and I went about my day." How does a man think he dropped his child at daycare? A thinking person would make an argument that you either know or don't know if you dropped your child at the place where he would be safe for the day. We aren't talking about a cell phone that was left behind, we are talking about human life. Why is it, you may wonder, that though Dr. Dill admitted to strapping his innocent child into his car seat, driving him to the campus of The University of Southern Indiana, and leaving him in the car while he taught class, his behavior was excused?

Yeah. Makes me wonder too.

Ollie attended daycare on the campus of The University of Southern Indiana at the Children's Learning Center, and that is where Dr. Dill says he intended to take Ollie that fateful July day. Dill works as an Assistant Professor of Accounting in the Business and Engineering Building and utilizes parking lot "J" on the campus. From his home on the west side of Evansville, he drives just under seven miles, thirteen minutes time, to arrive at the Business and Engineering Building. According to Dill, in those thirteen minutes that it took him to drive to work, he simply forgot Oliver was strapped into his car seat that he had strapped little Ollie into just thirteen minutes before he parked his car and went about his day. It is interesting to note that his route takes him directly past the Children's Learning Center, where he was supposed to drop his son off for the day. It is unfortunate that Dill was entrusted with the care of his son, as he continued to drive to parking lot "J", park his vehicle, get his things, lock his vehicle, and walk away. He did all of it without noticing little Ollie in the back seat. When Dill left work for the evening, he strolled to his car and opened the back door. Upon opening the door and seeing little Ollie obviously deceased Dr. Andrew Dill snatched his son from the car seat that he had strapped him into hours earlier and ran with him to the Children's Learning Center for help. The irony of Dill taking his son, dead at his own hands, into the very place where he should have dropped little Oliver for the day just serves to add one more painful twist to Oliver's story.

To understand the passion with which I demand the arrest and prosecution of Dill, you must understand what happened to the tiny body of Oliver. The temperature in Evansville, Indiana, on that fateful July day, was a blistering ninety degrees. The temperature inside the car Oliver was trapped in rose very quickly and would have reached an incredible one hundred nine degrees after only ten minutes. After thirty minutes, Oliver was sitting inside a car with a temperature of one hundred and twenty-four degrees. After ninety minutes, little Oliver Dill was cooking alive inside one hundred and thirty-eight degrees! First, Ollie would have started to sweat as the temperatures inside the closed car began to rise. His heart rate would have increased in speed and decreased in strength. As Ollie sat strapped into the seat that his father put him in, his breathing would have increased as his lungs fought to move oxygen to cells that were starting to break down. His little muscles would have cramped painfully as Ollie strained against the straps that locked him into his death. While the state of Ollie's little body moved into heatstroke, his skin would have started to become dry as his blood vessels spontaneously dilated in an attempt to increase heat loss. The accompanying dehydration can produce nausea, vomiting of what precious little fluid is left in the body, severe headache, and low blood pressure.

Low blood pressure as the body screams for moisture often leads to passing out. It is my hope that is what happened with little Ollie as confusion would be the next symptom to set in. While his father was inside an air-conditioned classroom, calmly teaching his students, Ollie's heart and respiration would have significantly increased, his tiny heart working even harder to maintain circulation with the sudden loss of water in the body. It's commonplace in children for them to have violent seizures just before death, though we can't be sure that was the case with Oliver Dill. Little Ollie's organs shut down one at a time, his tiny body unable to escape the heat of the car that his father is responsible for strapping him into.

I reached out to Dr. Dill, asking if there was anything he would like to include in the piece I was writing about the death of his son, and he responded with the following,

Dear Mentally Unstable Person:

The fact that you referred to my son’s death as a murder deems you unworthy of any type of dialogue. However, if you want a statement, here it is: you deserve the lowest rungs of hell for your statements and for claiming to be the “voice of Oliver.” Any further contact from you will be forwarded to the authorities as harassment.

Sent from his iPad, which I'm sure he didn't forget to remove from his car on the day he left his son to die a violent death. Neither Dill was arrested for the death of little Ollie, despite clear evidence of both parents being neglectful in the death of their son. It is the intention of the Dills to now tour, talking about the death of Oliver and what can be done to prevent hot car deaths. After getting away with the negligent death of Ollie, they will now profit from his death, and they do it publicly and with pride. Oliver's life counted too, and that his father is a professor and had a bleeding heart story should not negate his negligent homicide charge. It is my feeling that Jamie should also be held accountable for the death of her son. A simple phone call to the daycare could have very well saved the life of her young son. Oliver could have been spared the torture of his last moments on earth, and she should pay for her negligence.

Jennifer Ost: Anderson, Indiana

Twenty-seven-year-old Jennifer Ost gave birth to a baby boy on July 12, 2019, and she then signed out of the hospital against the advice of the medical staff. Ost was summoned to the Department of Child Services (DCS) on July 17, 2019, to answer as to why she chose to take her child out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA). While in the interview, Ost presented the child to medical staff to be evaluated and became belligerent and defiant with the staff at DCS, cussing and being extremely evasive with her answers. About two hours into the appointment with DCS, around 4:30 pm, a passerby reported a young boy in a car with the windows rolled up, watching a movie on a cell phone. Police responded to the scene and found the little boy watching the cell phone wet from sweat. The outside temperature was 86 degrees and the windows in the car were found to be up. The doors to the car were unlocked and the child was brought into the building. Ost claimed the child at once, proclaiming that the child simply didn't want to attend the appointment with her and the baby and chose to remain in the car. Jennifer Ost was arrested by Anderson, Indiana police, and charged with neglect of a dependent and endangering a dependent and booked into the Madison County Jail. Though both the child left in the car and her newborn were fine, with no long-term medical effects, the children were removed from her custody immediately. Ost was found guilty and sentenced to one year of in-home detention, which she completed in October 2020. She was also forced to pay a hefty fine and fees for the maintenance of her in-home detention program.

The differences in the cases are astounding when you consider that in two of them, no human or animal was hurt and two of them resulted in death. It is curious that a college professor and a nurse practitioner's actions were dismissed as a tragic accident while a homeless woman and a young single mother were held accountable, though all four persons were neglectful in their actions.

Homicide through neglect is still homicide. I will continue to demand the arrest and prosecution of Dr. Andrew Dill, as is required by law. It is my feeling that Jamie should also be held accountable for the death of her son. A simple phone call to the daycare could have very well saved the life of her young son. Oliver could have been spared the torture of his last moments on earth, and she should pay for her negligence. I will also continue to question why Nicole Engler was permitted to carry on as a medical professional in Roseburg, despite her fault in the death of her daughter. Oliver and Remington's lives counted too, and the fact that Ollie's father is a professor and Remington's mother is a nurse practitioner, each with a bleeding heart story should not negate their culpability in the death of their children.