A mother who accidentally killed her toddler daughter by leaving her in her car on a hot day after forgetting to drop her at daycare has been begging police to let her kill herself since she was charged with manslaughter.
Nicole Engler was taken into custody on June 21 after finding her 21-month-old daughter Remy blue in her car at around 4.30pm in Roseburg, Oregon.
Engler had forgotten to drop the toddler off at daycare on her way to work at Evergreen Family Medicine, where she works as a pediatric nurse, that morning.
Throughout the day, she told baristas in the coffee shop where she went at lunchtime that her daughter was at day care, having failed to notice her when she got into the car to drive there and when she got back into it to return to work for the afternoon.
When she finally got out of work, temperatures had soared to 70F and Remy was unresponsive.
Normally, the child’s father took her to daycare but Nicole had left him sleeping at home that morning because he had just finished a night shift as an EMT.
Nicole Engler, 38, begged to be able to commit suicide in jail after being charged for the death of her 21-month-old Remy who died after being accidentally left in her mother’s car while she was at work. Nicole and her husband Peter (above left) tried to conceive for 15 years before Remy was born
Before being released on $50,000 bond raised through donation funds set up since the tragedy, the 38-year-old mother was beside herself in county jail.
Her lawyer David Terry has since described how she was pulling clumps out of her own hair and begging to be allowed to kill herself because she was so distraught.
Terry made the revelation in an open letter in which he begs for the charges to be dropped and claims that Nicole suffered ‘lapsed memory’, a condition which has been invoked in past cases of child car deaths.
He told the mother and her husband Peter had been trying to have children for 15 years before she gave birth to Remy, her ‘treasure’.
He also described the harrowing scene inside the emergency room where Remy was taken and pronounced dead.
‘As life sometimes deposits us in the midst of horrific tragedies, so was I thrust into one of the saddest of my 40 year career last Thursday evening when I came to find myself at the emergency department of Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg.
Suicidal and pulling her hair out in clumps in a s*** smeared, padded iso cell in the Douglas County Jail, with screaming schizophrenics on either side, she begged to be allowed to take her own life
David Terry, Nicole Engler’s lawyer
‘She lay on the bed, lifeless and intubated, as her father, draped over her body,wept uncontrollably into her bed clothes,’ he wrote.
Terry told how the family’s daily routine had been ‘drastically altered’ by the fact that her father, who normally drove her to daycare, had just finished a night shift at the hospital where he worked when Nicole woke up to go to her job.
Instead of waking him to get him to take Remy to daycare, she decided she would drop her off herself and allow her husband to continue sleeping.
‘The mother saw her husband asleep on the couch after his night shift as an EMT and bundled up her treasure, placed her lovingly into her car seat, and headed out to drop her off at daycare on her way to her place of employment.
Engler pulled clumps out of her hair and was weeping in her cell as schizophrenics ‘screamed’ around her, her lawyer said
‘There she had an over-filled day ahead of her caring for little kids and their worried parents.
‘As she drove across town following the exact route she drove 6 days a week between her house and her work, her mind was already on her precious patients and the procedures, treatments and tough calls she would have to make all shift long.
‘She arrived at work, got out of her car, and charged in to help little kids and their families all day long.
‘She was safe and secure in the knowledge that her child was safe at the Cobb Street Learning Center.
Even at lunchtime, the mother-of-one did not notice her daughter in the car. Clearly under the belief that she was at daycare, she even told baristas at Dutch Bros Coffee Shack about their forthcoming trip to Mexico and said that Remy was ‘having another happy play day at Cobb Street’.
‘At 4.30pm, after a grueling day, she walked out to her car and saw the lifeless form of her treasure, the child she had tried for 15 years to have, was told she couldn’t, and then gave birth to at the age of 38.
‘Two hours later, suicidal and pulling her hair out in clumps in a s*** smeared, padded iso cell in the Douglas County Jail, with screaming schizophrenics on either side, she begged to be allowed to take her own life.’
Engler was released on bond after a hearing on Friday and she has been ‘recovering in the bosom of an amazing family’ ever since.
Terry is now asking the DA to wade in and stop county prosecutors from pursuing charges against her.
Speaking of the arraignment hearing, he said: ‘The prosecutor, with righteous indignation, argued that the Defendant was an admitted suicide risk and as such a “risk to the community”.’
They wanted her to be held on a bond of $250,000. He got it lowered to $50,000 and she was released.
As part of his plea, he invoked a 2014 case in Washington where prosecutors decided not to pursue charges against a child’s mother who had also accidentally left their child in a hot car.
Nicole was at work at the Evergreen Family Medicine facility while her daughter was in her car
‘Please help spread, press and in anyway possible advance the public narrative that lapsed memory is real, hard science.
‘I need to force the DA to do the right thing and dismiss this case.
‘I beseech you to use your voices and awesome powers of persuasion in helping me to accomplish that,’ he said.
Two funds have been set up in the wake of the tragedy.
One is in Remy’s memory and allows mourners to give a donation to Oregon’s Wildlife Safari.
The second is a bank fund to help Nicole with her legal fees. It is at Umpqua Bank and is listed under the Engler Family Benefit Fund.
On Thursday, a week after Remy’s death, the facility said Nicole had been in touch to thank well wishers for their support.
‘Nicole Engler asked that I post this message of deep gratitude from herself, her husband Peter, and her family to the community.
‘They have felt the love and grace you have extended to them and it has been more than helpful.
‘It not only encouraged them in their grief of today, but has given Nicole and Peter hope for tomorrow.
‘From soul to soul, your heartfelt response has helped to kindle the healing. Thank you,’ the post read.