Ex-Cop Sentenced in Child's Hot-Car Death

Cassie Barker gets maximum 20 years
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 2, 2019 4:37 AM CDT
Ex-Cop Gets 20 Years in Child's Hot-Car Death
Cassie Barker, an ex-Long Beach police officer, pleads guilty to manslaughter in Harrison County Circuit Court in Gulfport, Miss., on Monday, March 18, 2019.   (Justin Mitchell/The Sun Herald via AP)

A former Mississippi Gulf Coast police officer is headed to prison for the death of her 3-year-old daughter, who was left in a patrol car while her mom had sex with a police supervisor and fell asleep. The Sun Herald of Biloxi reports ex-Long Beach police officer Cassie Barker was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison in the 2016 death of Cheyenne Hyer. The 29-year-old, who is pregnant, pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter in a plea bargain after being indicted on a charge of second-degree murder, the AP reports. Prosecutors recommended that she serve 20 years, which was the maximum sentence.

Cheyenne was strapped in her car seat in the patrol car for four hours while Barker was with her then-supervisor. The car's air conditioning was turned on, but it wasn't blowing cold air. Cheyenne was unresponsive and had a temperature of 107 degrees when Barker returned. At Monday's sentencing hearing, father Ryan Hyer said he left Barker a year before the death because he caught her cheating on him with her supervisor. "I have blamed myself for every what if, should have, and could have," he said. "My life has been a complete hell without Cheyenne. This will never get easier." (A Florida woman rescued an 8-month-old boy who had been left in a hot car.)


Read more here: https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/crime/article228687819.html#storylink=cpy
(More child dies in hot car stories.)

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