A 20-year-old San Joaquin Valley woman is expected to spend more than a decade in state prison in connection with the death of her 1-year-old child who died after being left in her vehicle in summer temperatures of more than 100 degrees while she was getting lip-filler injections at a nearby spa.
The June 29, 2025, incident occurred in Bakersfield around 2 p.m. when Maya Hernandez left her two children unsupervised in her 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid for more than two hours while she went to the spa, KTLA’s Bakersfield sister station KGET reported.
Hernandez, who told police that she left the vehicle’s engine running and the air conditioning on, was unaware that her vehicle had a feature that shuts the motor off after an hour of idling.
Investigators said they believe the vehicle’s engine shut off around 3 p.m., leaving Amilio, 1, and Mateo, 2, in the car for more than an hour while outside temps were in the 100s.
Bakersfield Police Department Det. Kyle McNabb wrote in police documents that the internal temperature of the vehicle could have risen to more than 140 degrees, the Los Angeles Times reported.
When she returned to her car at 4:30 p.m., Hernandez found Amilio foaming at the mouth and having a seizure, police said. She called 911 and both children were rushed to the hospital.
Amilio was not breathing, had blue lips and no pulse when he arrived at the hospital, with the police report saying his internal body temperature had risen to more than 107.2 degrees.
He was pronounced dead by the Kern County coroner’s office.
Amilio’s older brother survived the ordeal and has since recovered, The Times reported.
Maya Hernandez, 20, a resident of Visalia, is scheduled to be sentenced in the death of her son on March 5, 2026, in Kern County Superior Court in Bakersfield. (Google Maps)
Earlier this month, the presiding judge declared a mistrial in her case when a deadlocked jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether the 20-year-old’s actions constituted a reckless disregard for her son’s life or if it was just a tragic mistake.
Kern County Chief Deputy District Attorney Eric Smith told KGET that he had to consider the mistrial, along with all the evidence in the case when making the decision on whether to retry Hernandez.
“Ultimately we wanted to retry her on murder, that’s what she was charged initially, that’s what we believe she is culpable of, but we also had to take into account other factors,” Smith said.
Ultimately, the second-degree murder charge was dropped and Hernandez pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter.
With two strikes, it is expected that she would be sentenced to 15 years, though criminal defense attorney Alekxia Torres-Stallings, who closely followed the trial, told KGET that Hernandez is not likely to serve more than 85% of the sentence, which is scheduled for a March 5 hearing.
Hernandez’s sister, Makayla Kirkland, described her sister’s actions as a selfish mistake.
“It was the dumbest mistake, it was a stupid, selfish mistake, I’ll say it,” she said. “But at the end of the day, she didn’t expect them to get hurt.”
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