A Colleton County jury found her mother and the mother’s boyfriend guilty of murder on September 1 three years after a 13-year-old disabled girl died in a hot car. The jury concluded that the two shown reckless disregard for the child’s life by leaving her in the vehicle in the South Carolina summer sun.
Who was Cristina Pangalangan?
On August 5, 2019, the teen, Cristina Pangalangan, passed away from heatstroke inside a Volkswagen that was parked outside a house on Lowcountry Highway in Colleton County.
Rita Pangalangan and Larry Eugene King Jr. put the teen in the backseat while they were allegedly high on methamphetamine, according to the prosecution, and left her in the vehicle for five hours and 41 minutes.
Because of her cerebral palsy, Cristina was mute and confined to a wheelchair. She couldn’t call for aid or open the car door due to her state. However, the 13-year-old, who loved to watch cartoons and swim, was capable of feeling a range of emotions, from joy to agony.
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The prosecution of the two by Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone convinced the jury that the case involved “implied malice.”
“The way they behaved amounted to a conscious disregard for the lives of others, and in this case, the other person was Cristina, a child who was completely dependent on them for safety,” the author writes.
King’s home security camera, which was shown to the jury, contained images of Cristina baking for five hours inside the automobile. At 11:15 a.m., King got out of the automobile and proceeded towards his porch while wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a grey tank top. They had a lengthy conversation before entering his home. Cristina endured the sweltering South Carolina summer inside the vehicle the entire time.
After an hour, the mother went to check on her daughter. She didn’t return to the car again until three in the afternoon, and by then it was locked. Pangalangan and King walked away for nearly an hour to get a different set of keys rather than smashing a window. When they came back, Cristina had passed away.
In a car that felt like it was 135 degrees, Cristina’s internal body temperature reached 110 degrees.
Agent Ali Gadley of the State Law Enforcement Division testified that Cristina’s body was lying on tall grass when she arrived at the site. Her diaper was filthy, and she had burns and blisters from the car seat. Inside the home was her mother. Later, she admitted to the investigator that she had left Cristina in the car while she went to acquire smokes, but when she came back, the car was locked.
Both the prosecution and the defence acknowledged that the teenager was left in the car for more than five hours and died as a result of the defendants’ negligence. However, they disagreed on the legal implications of this.
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Jurors had their selection of a variety of criminal accusations, including murder, criminal conspiracy, and/or endangering a child.
After around two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury found Pangalangan and King guilty of murder as well as the allegation of unlawful conduct. Both were cleared of criminal conspiracy by the jury.
Killing with premeditation or malice aforethought is referred to as murder. Malice can be blatant or subliminal. According to Stone, Pangalangan and King demonstrated implied malice by their conduct, which is defined as “a wanton or reckless disregard for human life.”
