A mother accused of leaving her 10-month-old baby inside a hot car as she worked a shift at a Wendy’s in Louisiana was sentenced to five years in prison in her daughter’s death, a district attorney announced.
Hannah Faith Cormier brought her infant to work on August 13, 2024, and later, told police that she had forgotten her daughter was still in the vehicle after she went inside for work, KPLC reported. According to police, temperatures inside the car reached between 140 and 150-degrees.
Later that day, Cormier’s baby was seen at a hospital in Jennings, where Cormier told staff that her baby had been in the car for about an hour and a half, the Jennings Police Department said in an August 14, 2024, news release. Jennings is about a 90-mile drive southwest from Baton Rouge.
The heat index outside the car was more than 106 degrees as Cormier, then 32, worked at Wendy’s, according to police, KADN-TV reported. Her daughter ultimately died at the hospital.
On Wednesday, January 21, a judge sentenced Cormier to five years of imprisonment, with hard labor, “without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence” in her baby’s death, the Jeff Davis Parish District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
“The death of any child is heartbreaking and losing this 10-month-old baby has deeply affected our whole community,” District Attorney Lauren Heinen said in a statement. “No sentence can bring her back or take away the pain everyone feels.”
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“This was a difficult case with tragic circumstances, but every child deserves to be protected,” Heinen added.
Information on Cormier’s legal representation was not immediately available on Friday, January 23.
A few months after her daughter’s death, Cormier was indicted on a negligent homicide charge, according to the district attorney’s office.
Cormier ultimately pleaded no contest to the charge, the office announced in July 2025.
Louisiana law defines negligent homicide “as the killing of a human being by criminal negligence,” the district attorney’s office said.
Jennings Police Chief Danny Semmes previously said that investigators believe that Cormier “intentionally took the child to work and left her in the hot car, not with the intent to do harm to the child, but by her actions, harm was caused,” according to KADN-TV.
Cormier’s daughter’s body temperature was measured at 109 degrees at the hospital on August 13, 2024, according to police, the Associated Press reported. Police said the girl died from a heat stroke.
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Since Cormier’s baby was younger than 10 years old, she was required to face an enhanced penalty under state law — specifically serving prison time with hard labor, according to the district attorney’s office. She was also required to not be allowed probation, parole or a suspension of her sentence.
“This case has drawn significant public attention throughout the legal proceedings, reflecting our community’s collective grief over the loss of an innocent life,” the district attorney’s office said.
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