Posted on: July 25, 2024, 10:22h.
Last updated on: July 25, 2024, 10:27h.
A mother was sent to state prison on Thursday for between 94 and 125 months for leaving two young girls alone in a vehicle at a casino for over six hours on a hot summer’s day, which led to their deaths.
The trapped girls, one of whom was two and the other three, both perished in the back seat of the car while Launice Shanique Battle, 30, of Cary, N.C., was gambling.
She drove to Raleigh, N.C.’s Vegas Style Sweepstakes gaming property on August 27, 2022, and for hours didn’t bother to check on the girls who remained unsupervised in the car.
The sentence was handed down by Wake County Superior Court Judge Rebecca W. Holt.
Initially, Battle faced more than 80 years in prison after she was charged with two counts of murder.
But the North Carolina judge approved the reduced sentence, of between seven and over 10 years behind bars, after Battle said she would “accept responsibility” for “criminal conduct,” according to court documents.
Under the plea deal, Battle pled guilty to a single count of second-degree murder.
The two victims were identified as Amora Milbourne, 3, and Trinity Milbourne, 2, according to Law&Crime, a TV show.
The deadly incident came to light when the two girls were driven to Duke Raleigh Hospital by Battle after she finally returned to the car to find them unresponsive.
Bodies Decomposing
Their bodies had already started to decompose when doctors examined them and neither had a body temperature, according to medical reports.
The physicians alerted local police after health professionals declared both girls dead.
Based on an autopsy, the official cause of death for the girls was hyperthermia.
On 8/27/2022, [Amora] and her 2-year-old sibling [Trinity] were reportedly left in a vehicle parked behind a gambling establishment from approximately 1430 hours to 2030 hours (6 hours),” the autopsy revealed, according to North Carolina TV station WNCN.
“Documented weather for that time was hot, with a high temperature 95 degrees Fahrenheit with skies varying from partly to mostly cloudy with some light rain,” the autopsy added.
Battle was arrested the day after the incident.
Cousin Defends Mother
Despite the death of the two girls, Battle’s cousin, Keisha Harris, defended Battle to North Carolina TV station WRAL.
She’s a caring and loving mother to her kids at the end of the day. She’s not a cold-blooded murderer. She’s not a killer,” Harris said.
But The News & Observer, a Raleigh, N.C.-based newspaper, reported that Child Protective Services investigated Battle three times between 2019 and 2022.
During her brief life, Amora suffered from many ailments. Born premature, she had chromosome deletion, congenital heart disease, and was given a gastrostomy tube. She also suffered a cerebellar stroke and was repeatedly hospitalized during her short life, according to North Carolina TV station WECT.