‘Difficult’ conviction after 13-year-old girl’s death leads to bill raising age limit for neglect

COLUMBIA — When a 13-year-old girl with cerebral palsy baked to death in a locked, stifling car as her mother and boyfriend went on a drug binge, who deserved the blame was never in question. But state law made their conviction difficult, Solicitor Duffie Stone told legislators Thursday.

Last year, a Colleton County jury found Rita Pangalangan of Walterboro, and her boyfriend, Larry Eugene King, guilty of murder after they left Cristina Pangalangan — who could not walk or talk — in the back seat of her mother’s car for nearly six hours in August 2019 as the temperature inside climbed.

Stone told senators he intended to prosecute the two under the state’s homicide by child abuse law. But he couldn’t. The law’s age cap didn’t allow it.

The decades-old state law says victims must be under 11 years old for someone to be guilty of killing them through child abuse or neglect. The bill Stone supports would raise the cap to 18.

A unanimous vote Thursday advanced it to the full Senate Judiciary Committe.

“I don’t know why that was in there,” Sen. Sandy Senn, a co-sponsor, said of the 11-year-old limit.

“It’s silly. Kids over 11 matter, too,” said the Charleston Republican, who sits on the panel. Advancing it was a no-brainer, she told the SC Daily Gazette, adding the change would help law enforcement and prosecutors.

Stone said he doesn’t know why the law’s set at 11 either, even after researching it.

“Not only does it not make much sense to me, it makes it very, very difficult to bring a charge,” said the chief prosecutor for Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties.

Stone said he had to use a state Supreme Court ruling from 1957 to charge the couple with murder.

Cristina, who had severe cerebral palsy with spastic quadriplegia, died with a body temperature of 109.9 degrees, as high as the coroner’s thermometer could record. The official cause of death was hyperthermia, an extreme fever, according to Stone’s office.

“No air conditioning, no breeze, no windows down, and the temperatures inside the car, over that six-hour period, reached … over 118 degrees,” he told the subcommittee.

The child’s mother was sentenced to 37 years in prison. King was sentenced to 32 years.

Under state law, the penalty range for convictions of homicide by child abuse is 20 years to life in prison, while anyone who assists in the crime faces up to 20 years in prison. That compares to 30 years to life in prison for anyone convicted of murder, as well as a possible death sentence under certain circumstances, which include killing a child under 12 years old.

Duffie noted that the Legislature raised the age for juvenile offenders. Under a law that took effect in 2019, minors can’t be tried as adults for most crimes until they’re 18. Previously, 17-year-olds could be tried as adults.

“It seems to me it should be the same for victims,” Stone said about extending who’s considered a child.