Inset: Vanessa Esquivel (Collin County Sheriff's Office). Background: A McDonald's location in Frisco, Texas (Google Maps).
A Texas woman who intentionally left her toddler son in a hot car, causing his death, has been sentenced to prison.
Vanessa Esquivel, 28, was found guilty of murder in connection with the death of her 15-month-old son, whom she left in a hot car on a 96-degree day while she went to work for two and a half hours. As Law&Crime previously reported, Esquivel knew her car's air conditioning was not working when she brought her son to work with her at a spa on Aug. 16, 2025, and left him in the car by himself. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by local CBS affiliate KTVT, Esquivel returned to her car when her shift was over at 4:15 p.m.
On her way to the emergency room, and while her son was dying, Esquivel stopped at McDonald's.
According to the arrest affidavit, Esquivel arrived at Medical City Plano Hospital at 5:30 p.m. and told medical staff that her son was not feeling well after she was driving him around in her car, which did not have a working air conditioner. Medical staff said the boy was already dead when he and his mother arrived, and his body temperature was 106 degrees.
When police spoke to Esquivel at the hospital, she said she was with her son the whole day. An officer with the Plano Police Department noticed that Esquivel was wearing a work uniform with a logo for Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa, and he asked if she had been at work. Esquivel denied that she worked a shift that day.
Police said they learned from her co-workers that she had worked a shift and provided massage services for two clients after she arrived at 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 16, 2025. She did not bring her son into the spa with her. An employee told police that Esquivel was inside the spa for her entire shift and did not go out to her car until she left for the day.
According to the affidavit, Esquivel brought her son to the hospital after returning to the car, but stopped to order food at McDonald's on her way to 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.