Inset: Vanessa Esquivel (Collin County Sheriff’s Office). Background: A McDonald’s restaurant in Frisco, Texas (Google Maps).
A Texas mother has been sentenced to prison after prosecutors said she deliberately left her toddler in a sweltering vehicle, leading to the child’s death.
Vanessa Esquivel, 28, was convicted of murder in the death of her 15-month-old son, who was left alone in a hot car for about two and a half hours while she worked on a day when temperatures reached 96 degrees. As Law&Crime previously reported, Esquivel knew the vehicle’s air conditioning was not functioning when she took the child with her to a spa job on Aug. 16, 2025, then left him by himself in the car. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by local CBS affiliate KTVT, Esquivel returned to the vehicle after her shift ended at 4:15 p.m.
Authorities said that as she drove toward the emergency room while her son was dying, Esquivel made a stop at McDonald’s.
The affidavit states that Esquivel arrived at Medical City Plano Hospital at 5:30 p.m. and told staff her son had become ill after she drove him around in her car, which had no working air conditioner. Medical personnel said the boy was already dead when he arrived with his mother, and his body temperature was recorded at 106 degrees.
When officers interviewed Esquivel at the hospital, she claimed she had been with her son all day. A Plano Police Department officer noticed she was wearing a work uniform bearing the Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa logo and asked whether she had been working. Esquivel denied having worked a shift that day.
Investigators later said co-workers confirmed Esquivel had worked that afternoon and performed massages for two clients after arriving at 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2025. She did not bring her son inside the spa, police said. One employee told investigators Esquivel remained inside for her entire shift and did not return to the vehicle until she was leaving work.
According to the affidavit, Esquivel drove her son toward the hospital after going back to the car, but stopped at McDonald’s to order food before reaching the emergency room.
The next day, Esquivel called the spa to tell them that her son had died, telling her co-worker that she was “between a rock and a hard place” because she was unable to find someone to watch her son during her shift. Esquivel told her co-worker that she left her son in the car with the air conditioner running.
According to the affidavit, Esquivel asked her co-worker not to leak their phone call to anyone because she was being investigated by police.
Esquivel was found guilty by a jury of murder on June 16 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
