Saturday, October 30, 1999
Uncle gets 5-year prison sentence in child's death
Boy left in stifling car for 10 hours
BY EARNEST WINSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
James Adams said Friday that he thought he had no other choice but to leave his 4-year-old nephew alone inside his truck on a hot spring day while he worked a 10-hour shift at the Madeira Kroger store.
He was afraid to ask his boss for time off work to baby-sit his nephew because Mr. Adams had just taken several vacation days, his attorney, Raymond Faller, told a Hamilton County judge at the sentencing Friday.
Common Pleas Judge Thomas Nurre sentenced Mr. Adams to five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and two years for child endangering, to be served concurrently. He faced a maximum of 18 years in prison.
Prosecutors say his nephew, Damon Adams, died from heat exposure and dehydration March 17. Although the outside temperature was about 70 degrees, prosecutors say the temperature inside the car rose to over 100.
Mr. Adams, who pleaded guilty last month to both charges, choked back tears as he told the judge how sorry he is for causing his nephew's death.
“Everything that I had I no longer have,” the Forest Park man said, adding that he lost his job, his house and contact with his 7-year-old son, James, as a result of Damon's death. Mr. Adams became Damon's guardian a few years ago after the boy's mother — Mr. Adams' sister-in-law — lost custody.
But Denise Adams, 20, of College Hill, said her brother-in-law's claim that she and her family were not willing to take care of her son is untrue. At one point Friday, Ms. Adams got so worked up as she talked about Mr. Adams that she stormed out of the courtroom crying.
After the hearing, she and relatives said Mr. Adams should have received a harsher sentence.
“I think he should've gotten life because a week before he (Damon) died, Denise asked him could she have him back and he said no because he would get in trouble with the court,” said Dorothy Gaines, 21, of College Hill. She is Ms. Adams' sister.
The Rev. H.L. Harvey, a family friend and pastor of New Friendship Baptist Church, told the court that Mr. Adams was a family man who loved children and who was thoughtful enough to care for Damon while raising his own son.
But Forest Park Police Chief Ken Hughes described Mr. Adams as a “callous” person who had left Damon in the car on other occasions during the days preceding his death.
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