Police arrested a woman Thursday and charged her with criminal negligent homicide in connection to the death of a 5-year-old boy who was found unresponsive in a hot car and died at a La Joya ISD campus last month.
Diana Treviño-Montelongo, who La Joya ISD Police Chief Raul Gonzalez said is 37, was booked in the Hidalgo County Jail Thursday on a $50,000 bond and released the same day.
Gonzalez declined to release any more information about the arrest.
Treviño-Montelongo is a relative of the boy who died and she teaches at Dr. Americo Paredes Elementary in Mission, where the child was found after a 911 call.
A La Joya ISD spokesperson said Thursday that Treviño-Montelongo is on paid administrative leave, and that the district placed her on leave the day after the boy died.
A Mission resident, Treviño-Montelongo was named the campus teacher of the year at Paredes last semester.
In a video recognizing that achievement posted in April, Treviño-Montelongo said she was in her eighth year at the school.
“My passion for education? Well I originally wanted to be a social worker, cause I always wanted to help kids and be able to be there for them,” she says in the video. “But then I was thinking about it, and I was like, that’s gonna be kinda tough. I think being in a classroom, I can be there for them in a better way.”
About a week after the death, Justice of the Peace Juan “J.J.” Peña confirmed to The Monitor that an autopsy report indicated the boy died of heat asphyxiation after being left in a hot vehicle.
The National Weather Service recorded temperatures in the area at a high of 101 degrees the day police found the child’s body.
Speaking in generic terms, Hidalgo County Health Authority Ivan Melendez told The Monitor earlier this month that a child left in a hot car in the Rio Grande Valley would likely be unconscious within an hour and dead within two.
