2 young siblings die after mum locked them in hot car as punishment

A mother has been charged over the deaths of her two young children after she left them in a hot car as punishment, police said. Cynthia Marie Randolph, 24, initially told investigators her two-year-old daughter Juliet Ramirez and 16-month-old son Cavanaugh Ramirez locked themselves in the car when they died. But authorities in Parker County, Texas, say her version of events of what occurred on May 26 changed over the course of several interviews.

The young mother faces two counts of causing bodily injury to a child, NBC reported. On Friday, Randolph told investigators she left the children in the car as a form of punishment after she found them playing in the vehicle and refused to get out.  She said the thought her older daughter would have been able to leave the car.Authorities said she went back into her home, smoked marijuana, and returned up to three hours later to find her children unresponsive. She told police she broke the car window, in order to support her initial claim that they had locked themselves inside, police said.