Arraignment Put Off in Case of Mother Whose Two Babies Died in Car

An Orange County prosecutor postponed the arraignment Tuesday of Beverly Jean Ernst, saying he wanted more time to review the “complicated” and “very sensitive” circumstances of her infant twins’ deaths.

But the divorced mother of the babies, who died of apparent heat stroke Sunday after she left them unattended in her closed car in Garden Grove, will be charged today in North Orange County Municipal Court with violating probation in an unrelated misdemeanor case, authorities said.

Ernst, 25, was arrested last Dec. 15 at her family’s Anaheim home on suspicion of assault and battery and “interfering with the work of a police officer,” according to Mark Logan, assistant city attorney of Anaheim.

Sentenced to Probation

Logan said Ernst pleaded guilty last March to the charge of resisting arrest, a misdemeanor. Two other charges were dropped, Logan said, and she was sentenced to three years’ informal probation.

“Part of the terms of that probation,” Logan said Tuesday, “is that she violate no laws. And obviously if she caused the death of anyone that would be a violation of the law if it was without legal excuse or justification.”

Late Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade said he had not decided whether to file criminal charges against Ernst in the deaths of her children. By law, he said, Ernst must be charged or released by today.

Wade said that he had not received police reports or discussed the case with the Garden Grove officers involved in it until noon Tuesday and that he spent much of the afternoon answering reporters’ questions about the arraignment delay.

“This is the kind of case where we want to take our time to make a decision,” he added. “As you can imagine, because of the nature of the children and the circumstances--their age, the heat, the whole bit--this is not the everyday happening. . . . There really are two main questions: Do you charge her or don’t you, and if so, with what?”

Ernst’s attorney said that he would request that her bail be reduced or that a judge release her on her own recognizance if Wade filed the criminal complaint against her Tuesday.

Since Wade did not file a complaint, Ernst, who was arrested Sunday afternoon on suspicion of manslaughter and cruelty to children resulting in death, remained Tuesday in the Orange County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

“The law says we have to release her by Wednesday. We have 48 hours (after the arrest), excluding Sunday,” said Wade. “But there are two dead babies who don’t have the opportunity of 48 hours, and we can’t forget that.”

Ernst left the jail once Tuesday--in a Sheriff’s Department bus bound for West Orange County Municipal Court because her arraignment was anticipated--and was returned by nightfall.

Her only visitor in three days was Deputy Public Defender Dennis P. O’Connell, who said he talked with Ernst in jail Monday night and then at the courthouse Tuesday morning for “a couple of hours.”

The jail does not allow public visits on Mondays and Tuesdays, so Ernst has not been reachable for comment since Sunday.

Police have said that Ernst, a self-employed house cleaner who qualified for a public defender because she is indigent, told officers Sunday that she had left the babies unattended in her late-model Chevrolet for only 20 minutes while she visited with a friend at a closed janitorial supply house on Euclid Avenue.

Left in Unshaded Car

Police believe that the children were left in the unshaded car at least an hour, and firefighters and other experts have said that temperatures in the closed car that day could have reached 120 degrees--virtually lethal for babies whose sweat glands have not yet developed.

About 12:30 p.m., Ernst discovered that the babies were not breathing, according to a friend who was present, and took them out of their safety seats in the back seat of her car. At the time, only one of two windows was cracked open about an inch, police said.

Ernst and a friend tried in vain to revive the infants while someone else called for help. Paramedics also tried to revive the babies, but they were declared dead on arrival at nearby hospitals about 30 minutes later, police and witnesses said.

Distressed Over Loss

“She’s really distressed about the loss of the children, and then being in jail, and wondering what the district attorney is going to do with the charges,” O’Connell said Tuesday of his client.

“I think she tried to steer the conversation from the actual facts of the case because she got very upset and distressed whenever we got too close to it. I’m going to try to give her some time to absorb it all.”

O’Connell said he can not discuss his defense strategy until he has the opportunity to confer with the district attorney’s office and review police investigation records.

But, he said, “it kind of raises the question of if a parent leaves their child unwatched for 20 minutes and if the child falls and injures itself, does that constitute neglect, and can you be locked up for that?”

Based on a newspaper picture, O’Connell added, “it looks like the car was parked really close to the door (of the business Ernst was visiting), so it shows that she had some concern for the children.”

However, Wade said, “the issue is not whether she left the kids toddling in the backyard for 20 minutes. We all know of lots of cases like that. . . . This is different.”