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Asa North: Georgia Dad Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter In Hot Car Deaths Of His 15-Month-Old Twins

By Lindsay McCane
Published on: 14:38 PST, Aug 5, 2016

Asa North, a Georgia dad, has been arrested and charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless conduct after he left his 15-month-old twins in a hot car, which led to their tragic deaths.

According to ABC News, the police responded to a call to a duplex located on Tillman Drive in Carrollton, Georgia, which is located approximately 50 miles west of Atlanta, at approximately 6:34 p.m. on Thursday, August 4. When the police arrived at the home, they found 24-year-old Asa North in the back of the apartment building holding the twins in the pool, desperately trying to cool them off with water and ice.

Carrollton Police Department’s Captain Chris Dobbs said North’s neighbors heard his screams and came to help him to try to resuscitate the girls, who were identified as Ariel and Alaynah North. The paramedics also tried to revive the girls by performing CPR, but they were both later pronounced dead after they were transported to the Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton.

“The neighbors heard some screaming — I guess coming from the father — and saw him running around back with the two children,” Dobbs said. “One of the neighbors got some ice packs out of the freezer and carried it out there.”

On Friday, North was arrested and charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless conduct because the police said he had been drinking before leaving them in their car seats in the 90 plus degree temperatures, the New York Daily News reports.

“We do believe alcohol is involved,” Dobbs said, adding that they were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine his alcohol level. “We do believe the father, sometime throughout the day, he had been consuming alcoholic beverages.”

The twins’ mother was at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta when the hot car deaths occurred. She was reportedly visiting her sister, who had been involved in a serious car crash on Wednesday, according to Dobbs.

“I guess he forgot about the kids and left them in the car,” Donnie Holland, the twins’ uncle, said. “He should have took care of them kids better than that, what he did. He should have never been in the house asleep. He should have got the kids out of the car the time he got out of the car, you know.”

Arthur and Gladys North, Asa’s grandparents and the twin’s great-grandparents, live just down the street from the duplex where the twins were left in the car.

“I’ve heard of children being left in a car, but I never thought it would be on my doorstep,” said Arthur said. “He’s a dedicated father and he really cares about his children.”

Gladys simply remembered how sweet her great-granddaughters were.

“They were preemie babies but they were beautiful babies,” she said.

It is not clear exactly how long the twins were left in the hot car, but Dobbs said the autopsies, which are being conducted at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab, will help them determine the length of time. According to KidsandCars.org, the temperature inside a car can reach 125 degrees in just minutes, with 80 percent of the temperature increase taking place within the first 10 minutes. Ariel and Alaynah North mark the 25th and 26th children to die in a hot car just this year.

Asa North was denied bond on Friday, and remains in custody at the Carroll County jail.

[Image via Shutterstock]

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