Source: Los Angeles Times
Author: MARK ARAX, Times Staff Writer

Contact: letters@latimes.com
Fax: 2132374712

Toddler, Infant Die Alone in Stifling Fresno Apartment

Tragedy: Police say mother was out looking for drugs and left daughters
unattended for 4 days during heat wave.

FRESNOThe bodies, a baby face up in a crib and a toddler
wedged beneath a bed, were discovered Sunday night in the
96degree apartment, the windows shut and the air conditioning
clicked off.

Investigators said the two young sisters were left alone for four
days inside a stifling Fresno apartment while their mother went
searching for drugs. Police surmise that the girls succumbed to
dehydration one day after being abandoned during a 105degree heat
wave. "They died in a closedup apartment on the hottest day of the
year while their mother was out looking for drugs," Fresno Police Lt.
Jerry Davis, the head of homicide, said Monday. "We're still trying
to trace her movements, but it appears that she was gone from the
apartment from Wednesday to Sunday." The 29yearold mother, Debbie
Ann Lowe, on parole for a drug conviction, was being held in Fresno
County Jail on suspicion of murder in the deaths of her two children,
Ebony Whitfield, 20 months, and Myisha Tolbert, 6 months. Lowe was
spotted Sunday afternoon "acting crazy" in a neighborhood several
miles from her apartment, according to police. She emerged from an
abandoned house in a seedy part of town screaming and wielding a
large rock. She then tried to break the window on a van belonging to
Luis Rodriguez, who told police he had never seen the woman in the
neighborhood before. "She was screaming and acting crazy," Rodriguez
told the Fresno Bee. "She said she was looking for her little baby. I
told her that her baby wasn't in my van." He said she left but soon
returned with police officers, who could not make sense of her
statements that her children had been kidnapped. Police suspect that
Lowe was under the influence of drugs and may have concocted the
kidnapping story as a way to explain the deaths. "At this point, we
don't know if she returned to the apartment and found the children
and was using the kidnapping story to explain how they died," Davis
said. Lowe directed police to her home at the Dakota Woods apartment
complex. Officers found the upperlevel, twobedroom apartment shut
tight with the airconditioning unit turned off. They surmise that
the oldest child, Ebony, may have crawled under the bed in search of
a cooler place and died there. The children showed no other signs of
trauma.

"We're talking about either hypothermia, dehydration or a
combination of the two," said a spokesman for the Fresno County
coroner. "They were normal, healthylooking kids. They didn't appear
to be malnourished, and there was no obvious trauma on them."
Neighbors in the complex said they saw no outward signs of neglect or
abuse. "She always had her kids with her," said Connie Villegas, who
lives in an apartment below Lowe. "When I was up there, the apartment
was always clean. Her kids were always clean." The apartment manager
said Lowe had moved in with one child in July 1996 and was receiving
public assistance checks. This was a few months after she spent more
than a year in prison on a drug conviction and was paroled, according
to the state Department of Corrections. Shortly after moving in, Lowe
gave birth to a second child. The father of the child lived with Lowe
for several months but recently moved after the couple had argued
over Lowe's periodic absences, according to authorities. Lowe was
arrested Sunday on two counts of murder and violation of parole. The
Fresno County district attorney's office is reviewing police reports
before deciding on charges.

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