Mom who left kids in hot car to ‘teach them a lesson' found guilty

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A Parker County mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison for purposely leaving her two young children in a hot car. 

Cynthia Randolph’s 16-month-old son and 2-year-old daughter were found dead inside a locked vehicle outside their home near Lake Weatherford last May. It was around 96 degrees outside at the time.

Initially, police said Randolph told them the kids wandered off and locked themselves in the car while she was doing laundry and watching TV. She later admitted she left them in the car to “teach them a lesson.”

According to police documents, Randolph confessed to special investigators that she found her children playing inside her car and order them out. When the 2-year-old refused to get out of the car, she shut the car door to teach her daughter a "lesson," thinking "she could get herself and her brother out of the car when ready."

She then told investigators she went into her home, smoked marijuana and went to sleep for two to three hours. She later broke the car window to make it look like an accident, the police documents state.

Randolph was found guilty on two counts of reckless injury to a child.