{"id":349971,"date":"2026-07-23T15:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/349971\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:29:13","slug":"volusia-county-man-sentenced-to-42-years-for-sons-hot-truck-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/349971\/","title":{"rendered":"Volusia County man sentenced to 42 years for son’s hot truck death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Central Florida father sentenced to 42 years for toddler’s hot truck death<\/p>\n

\"AllisonVOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

A Florida father received a 42-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to second-degree murder. The judge adjudicated him guilty of leaving his toddler in a hot truck to die.<\/p>\n

Background<\/p>\n

The father, Scott Allen Gardner, was accused of leaving his toddler in the back of a truck for hours in 2025. The victim’s body temperature reached 111 degrees. <\/p>\n

After getting a haircut, investigators said Gardner went to Hanky Panky’s Lounge in Ormond Beach for drinks.<\/p>\n

When Gardner left the bar and got to his car, he found his son already dead. Instead of calling 911, he drove to his mother’s house and then called for help, but by that time, Sebastian had been dead for about an hour or two.<\/p>\n

Deputies said the toddler was left in his father’s truck with no air conditioning. Gardner lowered the windows and had a small portable fan on, but it barely reached the child, leading to his death.<\/p>\n

Officials also said that Gardner went out for more drinks with his mother at Hanky Panky’s Lounge following the toddler’s death. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Central Florida father sentenced to 42 years for toddler’s hot truck death VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1580,143245,2879,89135,28,30,29,64329,143243,143242,2339,7441,7238,1961,3688,1960,143244,22710,164],"class_list":["post-349971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-air-conditioning","tag-central-florida-father","tag-drink","tag-fields","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gardner","tag-hanky-panky","tag-hot-truck-death","tag-hour","tag-investigator","tag-lounge","tag-mother","tag-ormond-beach","tag-son","tag-source-relatedbackgroundthe-father","tag-toddler","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}