A Florida grandmother involved in the death of two of her grandchildren in separate incidents has received a shocking sentence of only five years in prison. 

Tracey Nix, 67, was sentenced to half a decade behind bars after a sentencing hearing on Thursday after she left her 7-month-old granddaughter, Uriel, in a hot car nearly two and a half years ago. 

Nix had been returning from lunch with friends on November 1, 2022, when she left the baby in the car as temperatures reached 90 degrees that afternoon. 

This was nearly a year after Nix’s 16-month-old grandson Ezra had been in the care of his Nix when he opened the doors and wandered into a pond outside of her home. 

Ezra drowned in the pool while Nix was sleeping during the December 2021 incident.

Friends she had lunch with the day Uriel died previously testified that Nix, whomthey had known for decades, was a loving grandmother, Fox 13 reported.  

The hearing was especially emotional, as Nix’s daughter and the mother of baby Uriel, Kaila Nix-Schock, told her mother she still loved her. 

‘I still love you. I hate this,’ Nix-Schock said in tears. ‘I hate that I have to choose, but you know I had to. But it doesn’t change my heart.’ 

Nix spoke tearfully to her daughter and said: ‘I love you, and I’ve always loved you with all my heart.’ 

‘I tell you that because I can’t imagine how I would have acted and reacted had you been taken from me,’ she continued. 

Nix faced up to 30 years in prison on charges of aggravated manslaughter, but the jury acquitted her of that charge. 

She was found guilty of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle, causing great bodily harm. 

Nix had gone inside at around 2 pm and talked to her dog and practiced playing the piano ‘for a long time’ before she remembered her granddaughter was still inside the hot car.  

Baby Uriel’s father, Drew Schock, said: ‘There are some things you don’t think about, and as parents we have to live with that for the rest of our lives.’ 

Nix spoke on the incident for the first time on Thursday about why Uriel ended up being left in the car that fateful afternoon. 

‘I didn’t realize that Uriel was in the car. I literally forgot for a long period of time,’ she said. 

‘I’m broken about what happened. I don’t want to leave anyone with the thought that I’m making excuses, because I’m not.’ 

Nix’s husband, Nun Ney, said that ‘Tracey mourned in silence,’ and she rarely left the house after Uriel’s death. 

However, the judge ruled on the sentence taking into account that the incident was not isolated. 

‘Uriel is not an isolated incident. I do not believe she is showing remorse; I believe she is showing sorrow,’ said Judge Brandon Rafool. 

‘She’s done this twice and the fact that we’re debating whether she deserves jail time is just insane to me,’ Schock said at the April 3 hearing. 

After Ezra’s death, police had attempted to file charges against Nix at the time, but the Florida Attorney’s Office ‘stated that a one-time lapse of judgment would not establish culpable negligence of the caretaker.’ 

Yet when the parents were forced to rush back to Tracey’s home in November 2022, Schock said he started to have flashbacks.

‘When I pulled up to the house, I’m coming to pick up my little girl, and there are ambulances there, and I’m thinking: “What the is going on?” he told Fox 13. 

‘I was having flashbacks, because when I pulled back with Ezra there, it was the same exact scene.’

Police showed up at Nix-Schock’s door to share the heart-wrenching news, but the mother was confused.

‘I said: “I’m sorry, what? I know Ezra’s dead. Why are you here, like what — what is this?”‘ Nix-Schock recalled. ‘[He said:] “No Kaila, your baby is dead.”‘

‘You couldn’t fathom it happening twice,’ Schock said. ‘Somebody has to answer for that.’

The judge told the court on Thursday that the sentencing was his ‘final determination here.’ 

‘I am not putting people on probation to be walking around this community to rehash an issue or for something to come up. I have sentenced her to five years in prison. I want this community to move on,’ Rafool said. 

He urged the community to give the family space to remain in peace. 

‘This community needs to move past this case and leave Drew and Kaila Schock alone. Let them and their two children live in peace. This family has lost two children, Ezra and Uriel Schock. The tragedy of this case is undeniable,’ Rafool added.  

Yet, Schock was outraged by the light sentencing. 

‘Five years is really a drop in the bucket. We will spend the rest of our lives – our son will grow up without his brother or sister. Five years to me, is it justice? No, not really. But it’s what we could have gotten,’ he said. 

Nix-Schock told Fox 13: ‘I loved and adored my children. I also love and adore my family. I think this hearing really demonstrated the tortured nature of the entire event. The love for my family is real, but the love for my children supersedes everything.’