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A 6-month-old girl died Oct. 16 after she was left in her father's car at the Intel Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro. (Theresa Myers/The Oregonian )
(Theresa Myers/The Oregonian)
A 6-month-old girl left inside a parked car at an Intel campus in Hillsboro likely died within the first hour, a medical examiner said Wednesday.
An autopsy couldn't determine exactly what caused Jillian Freier's death, said Dr. Clifford Nelson of the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office.
But it's possible she died in her sleep before the car heated up, said Nelson, who conducted the autopsy.
While sleeping upright, breathing can become difficult for infants, he said. They may begin breathing through their diaphragm, he said, and get worn out. Their oxygen levels go down while their carbon dioxide levels increase, causing their breathing to become shallow, he said.
Adults would naturally awaken during similar circumstances because their brains are more developed, he said, but infants seem to fall into a deeper sleep.
But that's just one possibility for the baby's death, Nelson said. He officially ruled it "sudden unexplained infant death."
Nelson has seen similar cases before, he said, but nothing with the same set of circumstances as what happened at Intel.
Authorities had not released the autopsy results before now.
The infant had been inside the car at the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro from about 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 16. The temperature hovered around 70 degrees.
Her father, Intel engineer Joshua Freier, told police he was operating outside his normal routine that day and forgot her in the car.
Police have found nothing to indicate that Joshua Freier intentionally harmed his daughter, said Lt. Mike Rouches, a Hillsboro police spokesman.
Freier told police he typically would take both his children -- Jillian and his 3-year-old son -- to day care on his way to work. But his daughter had her 6-month-old checkup scheduled, he said.
After her appointment, Freier was supposed to drop her off at day care, but started thinking about work and forgot, he told investigators. It wasn't until his wife arrived at the day care, called her husband and asked where Jillian was that Freier realized what he'd done, according to court records.
The baby wasn't breathing when Freier raced to the car. His wife, Katherine, soon arrived and started CPR, but the girl could not be revived.
Freier thought the baby died because the inside of the car had reached temperatures in the 90s or 100s. Court records indicate police considered the same thing.
Nelson said authorities looked at results from the autopsy as well as the police investigation to try to determine how the baby died. The inquiry included looking at temperature records, videotape of the car and at the amount of shade around the car at the time of the incident.
He said he ultimately decided the heat likely was not the direct cause of Jillian's death.
"Regardless of what we found, it's not a good idea to leave your kids unattended in a car," he said. "It is just a tragic loss to the family one way or another."
The Washington County District Attorney's Office hasn't made a decision yet whether to file charges in the case. Prosecutors are waiting for evidence analysis at a federal crime lab.
-- Rebecca Woolington
503-294-4049; @rwoolington