Exhausted single mother who let one-year-old son die in hot car begs to have murder charge dropped so she can attend his funeral

By WILKO MARTÍNEZ-CACHERO, US REPORTER Published: 21:44, 12 August 2026 | Updated: 21:46, 12 August 2026 The Georgia mother who allegedly left her one-year-old baby inside a scorching hot car for hours and caused his death has asked to be let out of jail in order to attend his funeral. Deja Coleman, 29, was arrested on July 29 after her son, Daniel, was found dead inside her locked car in the employee parking lot of Northside Gwinnett Hospital, where she was a nursing assistant. Coleman was set to appear Tuesday at the Gwinnett County Detention Center for a preliminary hearing when her defense attorney, Tom Ford, suddenly asked for the murder charge to be dropped. That would allow a judge to set bond and effectively enable Coleman to attend Daniel's funeral this Saturday. Ford offered to let prosecutors re-indict Coleman the day after her son's ceremony. 'It would be a resolution in good faith recognizing lack of prior history, recognizing the circumstances of the arrest,' Ford told the courtroom. However, the magistrate judge shot down Ford's request, informing him that she did not actually have the authority to grant any bond. 'Only the state has the authority to negotiate with you about bond,' the judge told Ford, with Coleman seated to his side. 29-year-old Deja Coleman, next to her attorney Tom Ford, was charged with the second-degree murder of her one-year-old son, Daniel Daniel was found dead inside her car after being locked inside in scorching heat. His funeral is scheduled for Saturday Assistant District Attorney Megan Matteucci also pushed back on Ford's request, saying that it had no place at the preliminary hearing. Matteucci insisted that she was ready to proceed 'on the warrants that police took' in regards to Coleman. The spat eventually resulted in Ford waiving the hearing, which will send Coleman's case to Gwinnett County Superior Court. Coleman has been held without bond at the Gwinnett County Jail since being arrested and charged with second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children last month. Outside the court, Ford insisted that 'a dead child in a car with a wailing mother in the parking lot is not murder.' 'I don't care what the statute says,' Ford said, per the outlet. 'It is a mistake! Because you have a dead child does not make it a crime!' Ford said prosecutors had only told him that they might let Coleman attend the funeral while in custody. On Tuesday, Coleman's defense attorney asked for her second-degree murder charge to be temporarily dropped so that she could attend her son's funeral  Coleman has been held without bond at the Gwinnett County Jail since being taken into custody last month  The accused mother is a domestic violence survivor who lives in a Gwinnett County transitional housing community, according to a bond motion filed by Ford on Monday. The motion said Coleman was a certified nursing assistant who was a single mother raising a six-year-old with nonverbal autism and a four-year-old alone. Coleman was allegedly exhausted and running on almost no sleep on the day that Daniel died, according to the motion. Police previously said that Coleman had dropped off her two older children at a daycare on the day of Daniel's death. Law enforcement noted that this was part of her normal routine, as her older child has medical needs that require 'special attention.' However, she forgot to bring the one-year-old inside upon returning to her car. Coleman then went to the hospital and started her shift around 6.55am. Daniel was spotted slumped over inside the car around 3.50pm, roughly nine hours later, by a hospital employee who was walking to her own vehicle. Daniel was found dead in his car seat in the employee parking lot of Northside Gwinnett Hospital on July 29 Lawrenceville Police responded to the lot within three minutes and broke the car window open, but it was too late Police officers responded within three minutes, shattered the window and removed Daniel from the car. However, he was already dead by the time he was pulled out, according to police. The temperature inside the car was found to be 117 degrees Fahrenheit even an hour after the window was broken. Afterwards, officers then ran a tag on the vehicle and found that it was Coleman's. They found Coleman and told her about what happened. She was then interviewed and taken into custody, though police shed some light on her emotions. 'She forgot,' Lawrenceville Police Cpt. Dena Pauly said at a press conference on July 30. 'She was devastated.' The Daily Mail has reached out to Ford and the Gwinnett District Attorney's Office for further comment.