SPRINGDALE — The mother of two children found dead in the trunk of the family car last summer has been arrested in connection with the incident.
Katrina Markley, 25, turned herself in to Springdale police Monday. A warrant had been issued Nov. 30, seeking Markley for two misdemeanor counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor.
Curtis Markley, 5, and Virginia Markley, 4, were found in the trunk of Katrina Markley’s car on June 15, dead of apparent heatstroke.
The warrant wasn’t issued until November because of delays in subpoenaing phone and computer records and completing reports at the Arkansas State Crime Lab in Little Rock, where the bodies were sent for autopsy, said Sgt. Shane Pegram of the Springdale police.
The misdemeanor charge implies Katrina Markley’s inattentiveness caused harm to her children, but without malicious intent. State crime lab autopsies are standard procedure in unattended or suspicious deaths.
Katrina Markley told Detective Matt Ray the two children had gone to a neighbor’s house about 1 p.m. that afternoon, then to another neighbor’s about 3 p.m., according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Both neighbors, however, said the two hadn’t been at their houses. Other neighbors said Curtis and Virginia were outside, unsupervised, for most of the afternoon.
At some point, they apparently crawled into the trunk of the 2000 Chevrolet Malibu and shut the lid. The car wasn’t equipped with a safety release inside the trunk.
Curtis and Virginia played in the car often, their grandmother told police.
Katrina Markley called police around 4 p.m. to report them missing after another child came to the door asking to see them. By the time police arrived, grandmother Deborah Stueart had found Curtis and Virginia unresponsive in the trunk.
Katrina Markley admitted she had been on the computer most of the day, according to Ray’s affidavit. That was confirmed by a witness who was chatting online with her that afternoon, Pegram said.
Markley was booked and released on the misdemeanor warrant. She’ll be arraigned in district court Jan. 19.
Christopher Markley, the childrens’ father, was out of town on business at the time.
Nobody answered the door Wednesday at the duplex on Sage Street in east Springdale where the incident occurred. There was also no answer at a home on Kasey Avenue that Markley’s arrest record lists as her current address. The Malibu wasn’t at either location.