2 Girls Who Died in Heat Wave Are Mourned

Relatives hugged and cried as they saw two small white caskets carrying the bodies of a toddler and her infant sister being placed in a hearse.

The coffins, adorned with pink and white roses, carried the bodies of 20-month-old Ebony Danae Whitfield and 7-month-old Myisha Marcella Tolbert, two sisters allegedly left by their mother in a baking apartment for four days.

The girls’ funeral service was held Monday as friends and family members bade them tearful farewells.

Meanwhile, a deputy public defender said their mother, Debbie Ann Lowe, 29, should not be charged with double murder because she never meant to abandon her daughters.

“My client fully believed that those children were being cared for,” said Jack Weiss. However, he did not say who was supposed to have been caring for the girls.

“They’re at the right hand of God the Father . . . and they’re up there in heaven praising God,” the Rev. Alvin Whittle said at the funeral service. “There’s going to be a reunion one day. I know it is hard . . . but there will be a reunion. I’m going to meet them on the other side of glory.”

Police found the girls dead Aug. 10. They had been left locked in their west Fresno apartment during the hottest days of this summer, with temperatures as high as 108 degrees.

Windows were closed and the air-conditioning was turned off. The coroner said the girls died of heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Lowe had reportedly left the apartment four days before to look for drugs, investigators said. Police found Lowe frantically searching for her children several miles from their home, Lt. Jerry Davis said.

The children’s fathers, Michael Whitfield and Marcel Tolbert, helped carry the coffins at the funeral service.