Quebec police investigating after young child found dead in parked car

ST-JEROME, Que. — The baby found dead in a parked car near a daycare centre north of Montreal was forgotten in the vehicle by the father, the CBC’s French service reported Thursday.

Quoting unnamed sources, Radio-Canada said the man dropped off two of his children at a day camp Wednesday and didn’t realize his youngest child, who is less than a year old, was still in the car when he went to work.

Provincial police would not confirm the report.

Police spokeswoman Audrey-Anne Bilodeau said the child was found late Wednesday afternoon in a car parked near the daycare centre in Saint-Jerome, 60 kilometres north of Montreal.

She added the baby was not under the daycare’s supervision at the time of the incident.

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“An autopsy will be performed over the next few days to determine the exact cause of death,” she said.

There have been past cases in which children have been forgotten in vehicles. In 2013, a boy just shy of two years old died in a car in Milton, Ont.

His grandmother was convicted of failing to provide the necessities of life after he died when she forgot him in the vehicle.

Leslie MacDonald, 52, said she thought she had dropped the baby off at daycare but instead drove home and went to sleep, leaving the child in the car.

She received a suspended sentence and two years probation.

And in 2003 a Montreal man was charged with manslaughter after his two-year-old daughter died of sunstroke when he left her in the car.

Police said the man forgot to drop her off at daycare and drove to work. He realized she had died when he returned to the vehicle at the end of the day.

However the Crown concluded there was no negligence on the father’s part and the charge was withdrawn.

The Canadian Press