Mom of boy who died in hot car speaks

ORLANDO, Fla. (FOX 35 Orlando) - The woman accused of leaving a four-year-old boy in a hot SUV last year went before a judge today to face charges of neglect and aggravated manslaughter on a child.   

The child’s mother spoke exclusively to FOX 35 News.  Logan Starling’s mother said she still holds onto a piece of him to this day. 

“I was able to take his ashes and put him in an urn necklace,” Shelby Hester said. “He’s in the black part of the infinity. And then the infinity inside of it is his favorite color. His favorite colors were blue and black. So I got blue and black for him.”
 
Now the woman charged with his death is behind bars with a bond set at $165,000 and is ordered not to have any unsupervised contact with any minor children including her own. 

Logan’s mother said Mariah Butler drove Logan, his sister and her own three children to the Elite Preparatory Academy on a hot September day.  

Deputies said Butler left Logan in that SUV with the engine off, the windows up and the doors locked. 

All while she was inside the school where she just started working. 

Another school employee saw Logan’s lifeless body and immediately pulled him out and ran him across the street to a fire station for help. But it was too late. 

“It was like a nightmare,” Hester said. “I thought I was dreaming.”
 
According to his autopsy, his body was 108 degrees. The inside of the car was 121 degrees. 

The medical examiner listed his manner of death as an accident, but Logan’s mother said she sees it as neglect and hopes this arrest will help her and her daughter heal. 

“My daughter – she does things that remind me of him,” Hester said. “Like when we’re walking she will pick me flowers and she’ll tell me, ‘Mommy I’m Logan now. I’ma pick flowers for you.’ Cuz every time we used to go for a walk, he always used to jump off his bike and out of his little car and run and pick me a flower and he’d stand there for hours picking me flowers and now my daughter does the same thing.”

Butler is being held here on charges of neglect and aggravated manslaughter.