OLATHE, Kan. — A brother and sister, Mylesha Anderson, 24, and her brother, Marques Anderson, 23, were set to appear in court Wednesday afternoon for a hearing, after they were charged with one count of felony aggravated child endangerment in July.
The two are accused of endangering their two-year-old cousin, after they allegedly left her alone in a hot car at a Merriam shopping center parking lot.
Police say that the siblings were inside a cell phone store while the child baked in the car. People shopping and working in the area saw the child and busted out the window. The incident was captured by a bystander in a cell-phone video. Kristy Scales shot video of the frantic effort to rescue the child.
“I just went into action,” said Sarah Oropeza, one of the women who smashed the window. “Like I just started hitting the window and I’m screaming, ‘Help! There’s a baby in the car! She’s going to die! Help! Help me!’”
Leslie Anderson, the mother of Mylesha and Marques, told FOX 4 in July that her adult children went into the store to get a phone when they realized that they forgot their cousin. But by the time they got back to the car, police say that a frantic manager at a nearby shoe store was using a tire iron to bust out the car window and rescue the crying, sweat-dripping child.
“I know they have to deal with the consequences, I’m not saying a slap on the wrist,” said Leslie Anderson in July. “But I think the charges are very severe. They are too severe.”
