Mass. babysitter charged with manslaughter after child dies in car
MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass. (WWLP)– A Martha's Vineyard woman has been charged in the death of a two-year-old boy.
According to the Cape & Islands District Attorney's office, Aimee Cotton, 41, of Martha's Vineyard has been charged with manslaughter when a child in her care died after being left unattended in her car.
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Investigators said that shortly after 1:00 p.m. on March 13, Cotton called 911 and said that a child she was babysitting was not breathing and turning blue. First responders found Cotton performing CPR on the child and took over lifesaving efforts.
The child was taken to Martha's Vineyard Hospital and then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in critical condition. The child died on March 19 as a result of his injuries.
The arraignment report stated that Cotton claimed that while babysitting the boy and a one-year-old girl, she left the children in the car for what she estimated was fifteen minutes and returned to find him unresponsive. Surveillance footage from Cotton's home revealed that she reportedly left the children in the car for approximately three hours.
Cotton allegedly then told law enforcement that the children were strapped into the car seats while she was in her home cooking bacon and doing household chores. A prosecutor in the case stated that the boy suffered from hypothermia and upon his arrival to the hospital, his body temperature was 14 degrees lower than normal.
On March 14, Cotton was arraigned in the Edgartown District Court on the charges of Assault and Battery on a Child w/ Injury and Reckless Endangerment of Child. Cotton was held on $2,800 bail with conditions of release.
After the child died, the charges were upgraded to manslaughter, whereupon Cotton was held on $21,000 bail with GPS. She is due back in the Edgartown District Court on April 3 for a Probable Cause hearing.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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