Affidavit: Father could be charged in death of Garland child found in car

GARLAND, Texas - Documents from Garland police for the investigation into a child’s death, after she was apparently left in a hot car, call it a case of possible child endangerment.

In a search warrant affidavit, police question the statements made by the baby's father.

MORE: Child found dead inside hot car at Garland car wash

He admits he left the girl in a car for an estimated seven hours, but the records show that video evidence conflicts with what he told police he did during part of that time.

Court documents show the child was in the back of the car for about seven hours.

This was being investigated as a hot car death, but new information could result in charges being filed.

Thursday, August 1, was a typically hot, humid day in North Texas, when temperatures hit 90 degrees by noon, and the high was 96.

Court documents state that the father of the 9-month-old girl found dead in a car told Garland investigators that “he was supposed to have taken Victoria Tran to day care, but forgot she was in the back seat.”

The search warrant affidavit includes his statements to detectives, and compares them to surveillance video and cell phone evidence during the seven hours he said she was in the car.

The affidavit says he told detectives he dropped his wife off at work in Allen at 9:45 a.m., and left at 10:45 a.m. with Victoria in the backseat.

And he then told them “he went home after dropping his wife off at work and went inside the house and began to research vans to purchase on his cell phone.”

Then he told police he went to a Dodge dealership on LBJ Freeway.

The affidavit says the dealership surveillance video shows him arriving there at 2:56 p.m., and leaving at 3:34 p.m.

According to the affidavit, authorities then found conflicting information about what he did next.

It states that he told police he “drove straight to the car wash.”

The affidavit says security video from Jerry's Car Wash shows him pulling up at 5 p.m.

Police say the security video shows him discovering Victoria, unresponsive in a car seat in the back seat, at about 5:08 p.m.

On that day, a car wash employee who witnessed the discovery shared his thoughts.

“Mind boggling. Just the thought of a baby dying. No one would think of that. I don’t think I can forget it honestly,” Kevin Sanchez said.

The dealership, according to court documents, is “between 6.8 miles and 8.7 miles apart [from the car wash], depending on which route you chose...the search said it should have taken between 15-20 minutes to drive the distance.”

But according to the father's statements to police, his drive time would have been nearly an hour and a-half.

The court documents also say a doctor at the medical examiner’s office pointed out that “a bruise on her forehead, which was also observed in photographs taken by the Garland forensics investigator at the scene.”

The document also says there was a red fluid under Victoria's nose that is “believed to be human blood.”

Garland investigators say that no charges have been filed at this time.

Police say it could still take weeks to get a full medical examiner report.