PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — A Denver, Co. couple is in the Bay County Jail, accused of leaving their three small children in a hot car, while they were inside a restaurant.
Shane Joseph O’Connor-Avion, 31, and Rhiannon Andrea Conklin, 32, are each facing three counts of child neglect.
An off-duty Panama City Beach police officer noticed three unattended children in a vehicle around 7:15 p.m. Tuesday. The car was parked at a Mexican restaurant on West 23rd Street. Panama City police arrived to find the children, ages 2, 3, and 7, in the back seat.
“The vehicle was not running and the windows were barely cracked,” officers wrote in a news release. “The two-year-old was severely dehydrated.”
They added that they found O’Connor-Avion and Conklin inside the restaurant eating and drinking alcohol. They had been there for at least half an hour, police wrote.
The family was passing through town, on their way from Denver to South Florida. The children were turned over to Florida’s Department of Children and Families.
