Babies Died in Car : Mother May Have Slept, Boyfriend Says

A boyfriend of the woman whose twin babies died from apparent heatstroke after being left unattended in her car in Garden Grove testified Monday that she may have been sleeping inside a nearby shop while the children were alone in the car.

Scott Morrow, who was arrested last week after he fled the state in an attempt to avoid testifying, said from a witness stand in Westminster Municipal Court that the mother was next to him on a fold-out couch in a supply shop where he lived when she began yelling about her babies and said “something about letting her sleep and not waking her up.”

Twins Found Dead

Attorneys for Beverly Ernst, the 25-year-old mother, have said she left the 3-month-old twins unattended no more than 10 to 15 minutes. The twins, Ashley and Adam, were found dead shortly after noon July 20. Ernst and Morrow had taken them from the car and placed them inside the supply shop on Euclid Avenue by the time paramedics arrived.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade told the court Monday that he expects to show that Ernst had been warned about the danger of leaving the children in the car unattended. It was the first day of a preliminary hearing to determine whether Ernst should be tried on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of child endangerment.

Morrow, brought into court in handcuffs and an Orange County Jail jump suit, did not estimate how long the children had been left alone. In fact, Morrow said he has a “memory block” about most of the events leading up to the twins’ deaths.

Judge Dan C. Dutcher has agreed to the prosecution’s request that Morrow listen today to two tape-recorded interviews he had with investigators to refresh his memory. Outside the courtroom, Wade declined to reveal what is on those tapes.

According to Morrow, Ernst took the twins with them and another friend to an Anaheim coffee shop about 3:30 a.m. on the day of their death. The babies, he said, drank formula and stayed with them while the three adults talked and drank coffee “for about three hours.”

Morrow said Ernst drove him back to the supply shop about 7 a.m. Then, he said, he went inside and went to sleep.

Did Not Remember

Morrow did not remember what Ernst did, and he did not remember her going to bed with him. He said he was awakened by the shop’s owner about noon, when the owner handed him a can of soft drink.

Wade asked whether anyone was in bed with him, and Morrow said he didn’t know.

“You know when someone hands you a can of Coke, but you don’t know if someone was in bed with you?” Wade asked.

Morrow said he noticed a short time afterward that Ernst was on the fold-out couch. He said he was not sure if she had been sleeping or not.

The next thing he remembered was her screaming about her babies.

Morrow also testified that Ernst had visited him at the shop often over the previous two months and that she almost always had her babies with her. But when Wade asked if she left the babies in the car while they went inside, Morrow said he could not remember.

Deputy Public Defender Dennis P. O’Connell, representing Ernst, said that what happened between 7 a.m. and noon will come out in the evidence later.

“This is a really tragic accident,” O’Connell said. “But the real issue is whether a reasonable person would have known those children were in danger.”

O’Connell added that pathology testimony expected later in the preliminary hearing will show that there are many dangers to young babies of which the average person is unaware.

Returns Today

Morrow is scheduled to return to the witness stand today.

Morrow was arrested last week in Reno, where he had taken a part-time job. Morrow told the court that he left the state hoping that he could avoid testifying against Ernst.

Ernst, who is divorced, moved out of her mother’s Anaheim home last December and was living with a friend at the time of the deaths. She reportedly was in the process of moving again, however, because of landlord complaints about too many people in the friend’s house.

“She had applied for government assistance, but it hadn’t come through, and there she was virtually the sole support for these babies,” O’Connell said. “When this happened, the woman was completely stressed out. And now she can’t stop blaming herself.”

Ernst has been free on her own recognizance.