She's Charged After Deaths of 2 Grandkids in a Year

Florida's Tracey Nix faces charges after the most recent one, for leaving infant in hot car
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 3, 2023 10:22 AM CDT
She's Charged After Deaths of 2 Grandkids in a Year
   (Getty / fergregory)

A Florida grandmother faces criminal charges after the death of a second grandchild in her care in less than a year. The woman is 65-year-old Tracey Nix of Hardee County, and Nix's own daughter wants to see her in prison, reports NBC News. The details are wrenching:

  • In December 2021, Nix was watching her 16-month-old grandson, Ezra Schock, when the child drowned in a pond outside her house. Nix was not charged in the case. Police say she fell asleep in the house, and Ezra opened doors and went under a fence to the pond, reports Fox13.
  • In November 2022, Nix was watching her 7-month-old granddaughter, Uriel Schock, and wound up leaving her in the back seat of her vehicle for hours upon returning home on a day when the temperature reached 90 degrees, per WFTS. Nix says she forgot the infant was there and was charged with aggravated manslaughter.

"If I’m objective, she needs to go to prison," daughter Kaila Schock tells WFTS. "As her daughter, it kills me to say it. As their mother, I demand it. I will fight for them." She and husband Drew aren't accusing Nix of deliberately killing their children, but "I want justice," is how Drew puts it. "How do you forget a little girl?," he asks. An attorney for Nix, a former high school principal, says his client is a "good person" who is "devastated" by all of the above. "She loved her grandkids as well as her children very, very much." Nix faces up to 35 years in prison at her upcoming trial. (More child dies in hot car stories.)

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