A 36-year-old Nigerian woman living in the United States, Gbemisola Akayinode, has been charged with felony murder following the tragic death of her nine-year-old daughter, Oluwasikemi, who reportedly died of heatstroke after being left in a parked car for several hours in Texas.
The Harris County Sheriff, Ed Gonzalez, confirmed the arrest in a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on October 17. He stated that the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences ruled the child’s death a homicide caused by hyperthermia.
Gonzalez wrote:
“Arrest update: Today, HCSO Homicide Detectives and our Violent Criminal Apprehension Team arrested Gbemisola G. Akayinode for the murder of her nine-year-old daughter, Oluwasikemi Akayinode. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences ruled the death a homicide as a result of hyperthermia. Gbemisola (born 11-17-88) is being charged with felony murder and booked into the Harris County Jail.”
Tragic Incident
According to earlier statements from the Sheriff’s Office, officers responded to a distress call on July 1 at an industrial complex along Mayo Shell Road in Galena Park, near Houston. There, they found a nine-year-old girl left unattended inside a locked vehicle.
The child was rushed to Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) Hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Investigation Findings
Court documents obtained by ABC News revealed that the mother had left her daughter inside the vehicle for over eight hours on a day when temperatures soared to 99°F (37°C). Akayinode allegedly arrived at work around 5:45 a.m., leaving the child in the car with food, a rechargeable fan, ice cubes, and water, before partially lowering the back windows and giving the girl melatonin to help her sleep.
When she returned at about 1:53 p.m., she found her daughter unresponsive and discolored, prompting her to cry for help.
Further reports indicate that Akayinode had previously taken her daughter to work multiple times. She allegedly claimed she could not afford daycare until her next paycheck. However, investigators later found that her supervisor had already been paying for daycare on her behalf, contradicting her account.
Local media outlet KHOU11 also cited court records indicating that Akayinode initially blamed the tragedy on her daughter’s ADHD medication but later admitted to administering melatonin to the child both the night before and on the morning of her death.
Additional Details
According to The Daily Mail, Sheriff Gonzalez revealed that Akayinode had placed a sunshade in the car’s front window, which made it difficult for passersby to notice the child inside. Despite efforts to perform CPR, Oluwasikemi was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.
Authorities confirmed that her death was one of four hot car fatalities involving children in Texas within the first two weeks of July.
In similar incidents, a Texas woman in September reported that her two children died after entering a parked vehicle while she slept. Another case in August involved a mother who allegedly intentionally left her 15-month-old baby in a hot car while at work, leading to the child’s death.
