HARDEE COUNTY, Fla. Tracey Nix was practicing the piano while her infant granddaughter was dying in the back seat of an SUV.
According to the Hardee County Sheriff's Office complaint affidavit, Tracey, 65, told a detective that after she drove home from lunch with friends on November 22, she "just forgot" about 7-month-old Uriel Schock.
Uriel's mother Kaila Nix, had gone to get her hair done that day and had asked her mom to babysit.
It wasn't until one of Tracey's grandsons arrived, the complaint affidavit said, that "all of a sudden" it "came across her head" that Uriel had been in the SUV all afternoon. Her husband, Nun Ney Nix, immediately began CPR.
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Temperatures in Wauchula had reached 90 degrees that day. The Lexus SUV was parked in the yard with the windows rolled up.
Tracey, a former school principal in Hardee County, was charged with aggravated manslaughter. The pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 28.
Uriel's death is prompting her parents, Kaila and Drew Schock, to share their family's story with the ABC Action News I-Team. After identifying their daughter at the hospital, Drew said he remembers standing in the parking lot, trying to grasp what happened.
?To think of the last moments of her life as a mother is gut-wrenching," Kaila said.
"And that it actually just fxxxing happened twice. In our lifetime," Drew said.
Twice in less than a year. One family. Two kids. Their deaths both while in their grandmother Tracey's care.
Uriel's 16-month-old brother Ezra also died while he was at his grandmother Tracey's home. He drowned in a nearby pond. Drew got the call from Kaila's father three days before Christmas in 2021.
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"He goes, 'Something happened to Ezra,'" Drew said, who then called Kaila.
She said she rushed to her parents' home as fast as she could, driving 85 miles an hour on country roads.
"I could see the helicopter landing," Kaila said. "I didn't look. When there was a stop sign."
Kaila, who was six months pregnant at the time, was in a head-on crash with another driver.
"All of my airbags went off, I don't remember how I got out, but I got out and started running to my parent's house and at this point, I don't have shoes. I'm just running," Kaila said. "That was my desperation to get to my son."
Kaila said during the investigation into her son's death, her doctor told her she needed to make a choice.
"They withheld information from me, per my request, per my doctor's advice, that any information that would work me up or make me emotionally distressful would be harmful to my unborn child," Kaila said. "And I knew in that moment that as much as I loved him, that she was a real life and she was coming and it would be wrong of me to lose her over him and hurt her and take her."
Kaila said everything happened so fast.
"There wasn't a moment to get a grip of the death of my son before there was the life of my daughter. And how beautiful is that, her name is Uriel, and it?s a Hebrew name and it means, 'God is my light' and she came out so small, she was beautiful and just radiant."
Kaila and Drew said that after Ezra's death, they "didn't trust (Tracey) at all." And would never let their 4-year-old firstborn child go to their grandparent's home.
"We were anxious, but I loved my mother and I am a daughter that wanted her mom in her life in some capacity, and in that moment, I thought that I could believe in second chances," Kaila said. "When I was told that Ezra's death was an accident, some sliver child part of me, thought, "Ok good, I get to keep this mom. This grandmother. This person.'"
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Kaila and Drew were protective.
"The very minor amount of time that she saw my daughter was almost always supervised," Kaila said of her mom.
On Uriel's last day, Kaila said she knew her mom's plans.
"Uri was at a restaurant with other people that I knew and trusted, they were in the friend group and were keeping her safe, and I had supervised many, many, many interactions that this point at my house," Kaila said.
Within hours, someone from the Hardee County Sheriff's Office showed up at her house.
He said, "'Your baby is dead.' And I said, 'I'm sorry, what" I know Ezra's dead. Why are you here, like what, what is this?' 'No Kaila, your baby is dead."
"You couldn't fathom it happening twice," Drew said. "Somebody has to answer for that."
"Because somebody dies doesn't necessarily mean that somebody has to pay," said William Fletcher, the attorney representing Nix. "This obviously was an accident and the question was is it culpable negligence?"