The cause of death of an infant found dead Monday night was due to as severe dehydration and hyperthermia.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said evidence from an autopsy Tuesday suggested that 1-month-old Grayson Luncsford had been left in a vehicle without food or water for an "extended period."
The Peoria Police Department was called at 7:03 p.m. to the 2400 block of North Peoria on report of a deceased baby. Harwood said he arrived at the scene shortly after. Grayson was pronounced dead at 7:38 p.m. Harwood said he had been dead for "quite some time" when he arrived.
He said it's hard to determine the exact time of death or exactly how long the infant had been left in the car.
Peoria police arrested the child's mother, 25-year-old Andrea Luncsford, on Tuesday. She has been charged with endangering the health and life of a child.
Harwood said in extreme heat, leaving an infant in a car without air conditioning for any amount of time is dangerous.
"We've talked about safe sleep and the safe sleep suffocations that are preventable," he said. "This, too is a preventable death. When you have an infant or a kid in a car for any amount of time in this heat, the outcome is going to be as it is right now today, which is we have the death of a 1-month-old who has died because they were in a car with no air conditioning, no ventilation, no nutrition, no hydration."
A closed car without air conditioning can be 20 to 30 degrees higher than the outside temperature.
"We have to remember ... not even just an infant, (but) even an adult would suffer hyperthermia and dehydration," Harwood said. "It's going to happen a lot faster for an infant, unfortunately, because of body surface area and the makeup of their bodies and how fragile they are in their infancy anyway."
The case remains under investigation.
