A Tennessee mother was taken into custody and charged with child endangerment, neglect, and child abuse after she left her one-year-old daughter in a hot car.

Identified as 20-year-old Ashlynn Elizabeth Taylor, the mom got drunk the previous night and was in an inebriated condition.

Local police responded to a call at a home in the 1300 block of Woodcrest Drive early Monday morning, August 17, when a man reported that Taylor was sleeping inside his family car.

When the police arrived, they spoke to Taylor, who revealed she became extremely intoxicated the previous night during her 20th birthday celebration. She told the officers that she had no memory of how she ended up in a stranger’s car.


According to the investigation, Taylor’s friend told officers that she received a call from Taylor around 3 a.m. asking for money. But later she asked her to pick her up. At that time, the child was also with her while she was drunk.

The friend drove her and the toddler to Taylor’s home. In a drunk state, she refused to get out of the car. Later, she took the one-year-old inside the house for a while but brought her back outside to Taylor when she was crying.

She placed her in the car and also cracked the windows while turning off the ignition. The mom was in the vehicle from around 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. She exited the vehicle around 6 a.m., and her daughter was still in the vehicle alone for two hours.

Taylor’s friend’s sister spotted the baby sleeping alone in the car while they could not find Taylor. After a while, Taylor was spotted sleeping in a neighbor’s car. They called Taylor’s grandmother to collect the child when they couldn’t locate Taylor. Police asked Taylor where her child was, and she told them she was with her friend.

Court records revealed the heat index that day was 88 degrees with humidity at 72%.

The news gained the attention of several social media users. Some called the mother irresponsible, while some blamed her friend too.

One Facebook user commented, “I think the friend should be charged as well.” One sympathetic user posted, “So why would her friend take the baby back to the car and not wake her up to make her get out of the car? Please don’t judge her cause she is a great mother. It sounds like a set-up to me.”

“The person who took the baby outside and placed them in the car with the drunk mom needs to be charged as well. The mom was probably never awake sitting in that car, but remembers taking her baby inside the house,” added one more.

Taylor has also been charged with one count of felony leaving a child unattended in a motor vehicle. According to WVLT, she is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

Disclaimer: The Inquisitr could not independently confirm the facts of this incident and is reporting based on the information available within the public record.