U.S. mom sentenced to 15 years after son dies in hot car while she visited spa – National
Maya Hernandez, 20, was sentenced Thursday to 15 years to life in prison after she was convicted for leaving her two young sons alone for several hours inside her car while she was getting lip filler at the Always Beautiful Medical Spa in Bakersfield, Calif., on June 29.
Hernandez agreed to the sentence last month as part of a plea deal in which she pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death of her one-year-old son, Amillio Gutierrez. The judge said she has served more than 280 days of her sentence throughout the trial process.
A Bakersfield police report, viewed by the Los Angeles Times, said that Hernandez told police she called 911 after discovering Amillio having a seizure when she returned to her car after finishing her appointment.
Officers arrived at the scene and found the boy “unconscious, not breathing and had blue discoloration around his lips,” according to the police report.
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Hernandez’s other son had “soaking wet” hair and “appeared lethargic,” the report added.
An ambulance transported both children to Adventist Health hospital. The one-year-old boy wasn’t breathing, had no pulse and his lips were blue upon arrival.
Medical personnel attempted to perform life-saving measures, but the boy was pronounced dead an hour later. The other child recovered and has since been placed in protective custody, according to the police report.
Hernandez told police that she left her children in their car seats in the back seat of her 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid with the car’s engine running and the air conditioning on when she went inside the spa around 2 p.m.
She said she left them with crackers, candy and milk, as well as her cellphone so they could watch television.
Once Hernandez returned to her car around 4:30 p.m., she said she noticed her younger son was “appearing to have a seizure due to him foaming at the mouth and shaking.”
The police report claims that Hernandez’s car has an automatic feature that shuts off its engine after it has been left running for one hour while in park.
Police estimated that the engine in Hernandez’s car automatically shut off around 3 p.m. and turned off the vehicle’s air conditioning for approximately 90 minutes before she returned at around 4:30 p.m.
When police asked Hernandez why she didn’t bring her sons inside the med spa with her, she said she didn’t think anything would happen since she left her car running with the air conditioning on.
“(Hernandez) stated she was certain that her car would stay on with the air conditioning running the whole time she was gone, because she had been in her car for extended periods of time before and had even slept in her car,” the report added.
The boys’ grandmother, Katie Martinez, read a victim impact statement in court on Thursday, saying, “15 years doesn’t seem like enough. In the eyes of the law, a number has been assigned to this tragedy. But in my eyes and in the eyes of a father who had to visit his son in a cold grave, it is not enough.”
“We will have a lifetime without Amillio. We’ll never attend graduations, birthday parties, or even have him sitting at the kitchen table watching him eat a simple meal. The tragedy just didn’t break our family… Our city wept for our Amillio,” she added.
The boys’ father, Rosendo Guiterrez, spoke out following the sentencing. He was incarcerated at the time of Amillio’s death on unrelated charges.
“I think I let them down because I wasn’t there to save them,” Guiterrez, who is now out of jail, said to ABC News.
“I just don’t think 15 years is enough. From experiencing going to jail, I know there’s a lot of programs that could get her out. This should have never happened… it just kills me.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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