Vanessa Esquivel, a 28-year-old Texas woman, will spend time in prison after intentionally leaving her toddler son in a hot car, causing his death.
A jury found Esquivel guilty of murder in connection with the death of her 15-month-old son. She left the boy in her car on a 96-degree day while she worked for two and a half hours. As Law&Crime previously reported, Esquivel knew her car’s air conditioning was not working when she brought her son to work with her at a spa on Aug. 16, 2025, and left him in the car by himself. An arrest affidavit obtained by local CBS affiliate KTVT states that Esquivel returned to her car when her shift was over at 4:15 p.m.
Esquivel stopped at McDonald’s on her way to the emergency room while her son was dying.
According to the arrest affidavit, Esquivel arrived at Medical City Plano Hospital at 5:30 p.m. and told medical staff that her son felt unwell after she drove him around in her car, which did not have a working air conditioner. Medical staff reported that the boy was already dead when he and his mother arrived, with a body temperature of 106 degrees.
When police spoke to Esquivel at the hospital, she said she had been with her son the whole day. An officer with the Plano Police Department noticed that Esquivel was wearing a work uniform with a Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa logo and asked if she had worked that day. Esquivel denied working a shift that day.
Police learned from her co-workers that she had worked a shift and provided massage services for two clients after arriving at 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2025. She did not bring her son into the spa with her. An employee told police that Esquivel stayed inside the spa for her entire shift and did not go out to her car until she left for the day.
According to the affidavit, Esquivel brought her son to the hospital after returning to the car, but she stopped to order food at McDonald’s on her way to the emergency room.
The next day, Esquivel called the spa to tell them that her son had died. She told her co-worker that she was “between a rock and a hard place” because she couldn’t find someone to watch her son during her shift. Esquivel told her co-worker that she had left her son in the car with the air conditioner running.
According to the affidavit, Esquivel asked her co-worker not to leak their phone call to anyone because police were investigating her.
A jury found Esquivel guilty of murder on June 16, and she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
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