Mother Mourns Daughter's Hypothermia Death

11-Year-Old Died After Trying To Walk 10 Miles In Deep Snow Drifts; Father Charged With Murder

(AP)  Less than three weeks after her daughter turned 11, JoLeta Jenks picked out the clothes the girl would be cremated in.

Sage Aragon died, apparently of hypothermia, after she and her 12-year-old brother, Bear, tried to trudge through 10 miles of snow on Christmas Day to see their mother after their father's car got stuck in a snowdrift.

The girl who wanted to be a lawyer when she got older, and then decided she'd rather be a judge, was pronounced dead a short time after a rescue dog found her Friday.

"She was just starting to grow up," Jenks said Tuesday. "I don't know why this had to happen."

The boy survived and the children's' father, Robert Aragon, has been charged with second-degree murder and felony injury to a child.

As prosecutors builds a case against the father, authorities are trying to nail down an exact timeline of events, such as when the children started walking.

"You try to connect the dots on this thing and you can't, it's just difficult to understand," said Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling, whose agency handled the search for the children.

Robert Aragon, 55, was being held on $500,000 bond at the Blaine County Jail, about 60 miles north of where mourners planned to gather Wednesday to grieve the death of his daughter.

The children lived with Aragon. He was taking them to visit their mother for the holidays when his 1988 Buick Century got stuck in a snowdrift north of Shoshone.

"I told him there was a storm coming," Jenks told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

After the sedan got caught in the snow, authorities allege Aragon let the children out to walk to their mother's house while he and his cousin Kenneth Quintana, 29, stayed behind to free the car. Jenks said she eventually called Aragon because she was concerned after no one arrived at her home on Thursday.

Aragon had driven back to his hometown of Jerome after letting the kids out to walk to her house, Jenks said.

"I could not believe it," she said.

A public defender assigned to represent Aragon did not respond to calls from The Associated Press on Tuesday. A visibly upset Aragon cried during an initial appearance Monday, when a judge said the second-degree murder charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled Jan. 7.

Jenks said she called 911 for help after she phoned Aragon and learned the kids were on foot. A search and rescue team found the boy at a rest area near the highway shortly before 10 p.m.

Sheriff Femling said the boy was delusional from hypothermia and had discarded his jacket and pants, stripping down to his long underwear, and taking off his tennis shoes.

Snow had drifted 4 feet deep in some places and deputies had to crawl over the drifts to reach the rest area and retrieve the boy, Femling said. The child was treated at a nearby hospital and released.

"He did the right thing, he found some shelter," Femling said.

The rest area was about 4.5 miles from where the children started walking. Femling said the girl walked about four miles with her brother and then turned back.

The girl was found by a search dog about 2.7 miles from where the two set out, barely visible under windblown, drifting snow. Femling said she was wearing a brown down coat, black shirt, pink pajama pants and tan snowboots.

The girl was pronounced dead at a Ketchum hospital. Initial autopsy results indicate she died of hypothermia.

Officials say temperatures in the area at the time the girl was missing ranged from 27 degrees above zero to minus 5.

"I've never seen anything like this, it was a 10-mile walk, the way they were dressed, it's just all mind-boggling," Femling said.

Records show Aragon was convicted in February for misdemeanor drug possession. In 1994, he was found guilty of drug possession with the intent to deliver or manufacture.

Quintana, the cousin who was with Aragon on Christmas Day, said his relative has been wrongfully accused.

"There's no way that he could have known what was going to happen," Quintana told the Times-News.

[samrt-2009]

How surprising that Idaho, home to many of the nation''s militia movements, should have residents so painfully stupid.

[mdalerwill]

The father sent his children on a 10-mile walk in the snow, knowing a storm was coming, but "There''s no way that he could have known what was going to happen"? I wonder if he was crying in court because he lost his daughter or because he could be facing life in prison? The mother is an incredibly forgiving person.

[eggy1620]

The names of these people would make one believe they were reading a fantasy fiction novel.

[godseyesore-2009]

The father obviously didn''t give a d*** about his kids.

[mdalerwill]

Posted by eggy1620 at 12:56 PM : Dec 31, 2008
Posted by DaVicar3 at 01:29 PM : Dec 31, 2008

Native American names are frequently nature-based. One of the photo captions posted pointed out the Native American gifts the mother had been receiving from mourners. Learn a little something about someone else''s culture before making these remarks, will ya?

[richardking3]

Being stuck in a snow drift,the engine would still run and keep the occupants warm until help arrived!Letting young kids walk in a snowstorm 10 miles or for that matter even 2 miles is just plain stupidity!The man needs to be drug tested and a mental exam after that.He deserves what he gets!!!!!

[mdalerwill]

They could have stayed in the car & all been found frozen dead too...
Posted by B-Gene at 02:27 PM : Dec 31, 2008

Being stuck in a snow drift,the engine would still run and keep the occupants warm until help arrived!
Posted by richardking3 at 02:40 PM : Dec 31, 2008

Staying in the car with the car running may or may not have helped. There was a recent story about 3 young women found near...Tahoe, I think...all dead in a car left running after they got stuck in the snow. The snow had piled up until it blocked the exhaust pipe and carbon monoxide had filled the car.

Still, if I were weighing my options in this situation, I can definitely see more risk in letting two young(!) children walk 10 miles in the snow. And he didn''t call ahead and let anyone know they were walking. Maybe he didn''t have a cell phone. But after he got the truck free from the snow drift, why not drive to the mother''s house and see if the children got there safely or needed to be picked up along the way?

[walkshe]

I resent the "Idaho" comment, SamRT. I was born and raised here and am neither a malitia member nor stupid. So please don''t generalize us. As for freezing in the vehicle, the article DID say that the father and and his cousin drove back to Jerome after letting the kids out. Must not have been stuck very hard, huh? And if he''s a native Idaho and has ANY sense, he''d know not to go out in the snowstorms we''ve been having here lately. Yes, probably crying because he might have to spend prison time.

[ademeyer]

Why did the father still have custody after his previous drug arrests? He must have been impaired when he let the kids out to walk home in a storm storm. Very, very sad.

[pbkster]

Idiots like him give drug users a bad name. Pot dosent make people do things like that-- being stupid will though. We could start a war on stupidity but we''d have to grant amnosty to our commandor in chief.

[vittoria1]

No responsible parent would allow two young children to walk ten miles alone on even a glowing summer day with the temperature in the mid-70s. Anything could happen to them. I''m sure the father didn''t intend that harm should come to his children, but this was sheer criminal negligence -- especially since he and his cousin freed the truck and then just turned around and went home, leaving the children on the road.

Would that parents had to be licensed.

[barbaram99]

The smart thing would have been to stay home. People today ate not use that kind of weather. They lose their heads. In the car they should carry things neededif bad weather should hit. It dumb to let a child wallk in it and not be properly dressed for it. rest is peace after a hellish death.

[dowjones20k]

What a terrible tragedy ..

The father is a true MORON!!!

These children were not even close to being dressed for this type of weather ...

The father should have known if he had any common sense ... and deserves his fate ..

How sad ....

Thoughts & Prayers to the family ..

[graylight51]

around 2a.m. the other "adult" was arrested during a traffic stop in Jerome, Idaho. His bond was $500,00 on a charge of homicide. [ sage Aragon]

[erasmus606]

He probably thought they could walk 10 miles in 10 minutes.

I can''t figure out how they figured daddy was the better person to give custody of the kids to.

We live in a sick world.

[mainemade]

As quoted in the article: "Aragon had driven back to his hometown of Jerome after letting the kids out to walk to her house, Jenks said."

He WHAT??? What the hell....he didnt go make sure the kids got anywhere? I just don''t understand stupid people.

[rsmik]

First place for the 2008 Darwin Awards.

[harbinger09]

First place for the 2008 Darwin Awards.

Posted by rsmik at 05:48 PM : Jan 01, 2009


Darwin awards are usually award post humously to an idiot who does not survive their own actions--and are deemed so stupid that their nonsurvival is considered a benefit to the evolution of the species.

There are no awards given when kids are killed due to the stupid actions of their parents. No Darwin award here--kids are too young to understand the ramifications of hypothermia or the symptoms and it looks like dad may have used drugs one time too many and also exercised very, very poor judgment--his actions are very much like those parents who live their kids strapped in hot cars--a lot of nonthinking going on these days. This is a parent''s nightmare--certainly he was negligent---but murder indicates an attempt to do harm--if he had meant to kill them--letting them walk in a snowstorm was not the way--the prosecution better rethink those charges or they will end up with an aquittal. Condolences to mom, dad and the brother who have lost their little Sage. RIP.