Her Son, 3, Died in Hot Car, in Which Temperature Hit 140 Degrees. Now She’s Suing State Contractors

An Alabama mother is suing several state workers after her 3-year-old son died when he was left in a hot car for hours.

Ke’Torrius “KJ” Starkes was locked inside a car for about five hours on July 22. The driver, 54-year-old Kela Stanford, told police she forgot the boy was inside, according to the Birmingham Police Department.

KJ’s mother, Ethanlynn Stewart, did not have custody of him at the time. She has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford, her employer, and multiple employees from the Alabama Department of Human Resources (ADHR) and the Jefferson County Department of Human Resources. She says they were all responsible for KJ’s safety that day.

KJ was in foster care, and Stanford was supposed to take him from a supervised visit with his father back to daycare. Stanford did not work directly for the state—she worked for Covenant Services, Inc., which had a contract with the ADHR to transport children in foster care.

The lawsuit claims that after picking up KJ, Stanford went grocery shopping and then home to put away her groceries, leaving KJ in the car each time. Later, she allegedly went to a tobacco store and again left him in the vehicle. She returned home around 12:30 p.m. and went inside, leaving KJ in the car.

That day, the heat index reached over 105 degrees, and with black-tinted windows, the inside of the car could have gotten hotter than 140 degrees, according to the lawsuit.

Around 5:30 p.m., Stanford got a call asking why KJ hadn’t been brought back to daycare. She went to her car and found him unresponsive, still strapped into his seat. Birmingham Fire and Rescue pronounced him dead at 6:03 p.m.

KJ’s mother’s lawyer, G. Courtney French, called it “a brutal death” and said no one from the state or county departments had contacted her since her son died.

Stanford was fired from her job after the incident. On August 1, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office charged her with Leaving a Child Unattended in a Motor Vehicle, a felony that could lead to 2 to 20 years in prison. She was arrested that same day and later released on bail.

The lawsuit also blames supervisors and state workers for failing to notice that KJ had been missing from daycare for more than five hours.