Administrator whose toddler died in hot car says she failed as a mom

An employee at a preschool said Nesselroad-Slaby had left the baby unattended before.

BATAVIA, Ohio (AP) — A woman who left her 2-year-old daughter in a sweltering car last month told police that she failed as a mother and didn’t know how she could go on after the child’s death, according to a video of the interview released Thursday.

“Good mothers don’t do this,” Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby told police through tears.

Nesselroad-Slaby, an assistant school principal, left her sleeping daughter strapped into a car seat for about eight hours Aug. 23 in the parking lot of Glen Este Middle School, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati. Temperatures that day reached nearly 100 degrees.

The mother can be seen on the video sitting at a table, explaining her movements that day and at times leaning her head against the wall or dropping her head onto her folded arms while crying.

Nesselroad-Slaby told police that she changed her usual routine that morning by picking up doughnuts for the school staff — a decision that distracted her, and she thought she had already dropped her daughter off with a baby sitter.

Later during the interview Nesselroad-Slaby said: “I was just trying to be everything to everyone, and I failed my daughter.”

No charges

The Clermont County prosecutor announced Tuesday that no charges would be filed against Nesselroad-Slaby, saying her actions were believed to be the result of an accident but did not entail reckless conduct as defined by Ohio law.

A police report on the death of Cecilia Slaby released Wednesday had initially recommended a felony charge of child endangering.

Nesselroad-Slaby had left the girl unattended in the vehicle twice in the days leading up to the death. Both occasions were outside a preschool where Nesselroad-Slaby’s 5-year-old daughter attended, the report said.

Tara Phillips, an employee at Compass School in Loveland, told police that on Aug. 21, Nesselroad-Slaby came to pick up the older daughter at the school and told the child to hurry up because the baby was in the car. The next day, Nesselroad-Slaby came in again to pick up the older child and stayed for about 10 minutes to watch the class act out a story, the report said.

“Mom didn’t go to check on the baby,” Phillips wrote in her statement to police.

Phillips also told police that she had been informed by a former Compass School administrator, Debbie Wolf, that both Nesselroad-Slaby and her husband had been confronted last winter about leaving the baby in the car.

Wolf told police that said she later spoke to Nesselroad-Slaby, requesting that the child not be left alone in the vehicle. She said Nesselroad-Slaby apologized, and Wolf said she never heard about any further incidents, the report said.

The police report also included statements from various officials at the middle school where Nesselroad-Slaby works, saying they had never known her to leave her children in a vehicle unattended.

Nesselroad-Slaby lives in nearby Hamilton County, where the Department of Job and Family Services is investigating to determine whether her 5-year-old daughter might be at risk.

“We have an open case,” agency spokesman Brian Gregg said Thursday. “We’ve met with the family and will continue to assess the situation with the child’s safety being the No. 1 concern.”