Foster Mother Won’t Face Charges in Infant’s Death

The district attorney’s office has decided not to prosecute the La Mesa foster mother of an infant who died after being left unattended in a van, ruling that “the child’s death was not the result of criminal activity,” authorities announced Thursday.

Calling the death of 5-month-old Frank Martinez “tragic,” Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller determined that the actions of foster mother Mara Grimes “did not constitute provable criminal negligence.”

“That there was inattention with a tragic result is indisputable, but the error of the adults cannot be said to be ‘aggravated, reckless and gross’ or so much of a departure from the conduct of an ordinary and prudent person to constitute indifference to the consequences of those acts,” Miller wrote in a letter Tuesday to La Mesa Police Chief Robert Soto. The La Mesa police released the letter Thursday.

Grimes and Martinez’s relatives could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Frank, who had Down’s syndrome, was left unattended in a hot van for more than three hours after Grimes, her brother and her sister-in-law returned from a June 30 trip to Alpine with Frank, Grimes’ three other foster children and one adopted son. He died of hyperthermia.

The van was left in the sun in the 5100 block of Guava Avenue in La Mesa. When found more than three hours later, Frank had stopped breathing and had no pulse. Efforts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead at Alvarado Hospital. According to a hospital spokeswoman, his body temperature when he arrived was 108 degrees.

In what Miller termed “a terrible misunderstanding,” none of the adults removed the sleeping infant from the van after the outing. Grimes, who had begun to remove Frank from the vehicle but ran into the home because she felt ill, assumed upon returning to the van that her brother and her sister-in-law had already taken him into the home, Miller wrote.

The couple, Ray and Deborah Grimes, believed that Mara Grimes had taken Frankie upstairs to nap with her.

Three hours later, Deborah Grimes discovered Frank in a car seat in the van.

After an investigation, the La Mesa police recommended that charges be filed against Grimes. But, in a news release issued Thursday, the department supported Miller’s findings.

County social workers removed the three other foster children from Grimes’ care after the death, spokeswoman Carol Baenziger said. But state officials, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, must determine whether to revoke Grimes’ license, she said.