Trapped, Five Girls Die In Car Trunk In Utah

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah - The five girls, ages 2 through 6, often scampered through the summer haze and shrieked with delight in a small swimming pool.

Dennis Morgan, a neighbor, remembers chatting with the girls Thursday afternoon as he watered his lawn and the five whiled away another scorching afternoon.

A day later, their little bodies were covered in white sheets, lying on the grass as relatives wept.

Police said the girls - two sets of sisters who were cousins and an unrelated family friend - died of heat exposure yesterday afternoon, trapped while playing in the trunk of a car.

"One grandma has lost four grandchildren today," said Lt. Charles Illsley, a police spokesman.

The mother watching the five told police she was in her house while the children played outside in the yard. When she went to check on them and couldn't find them, she called neighbors and the mothers of the other girls to begin a search.

Nearly an hour later, two police officers and one of the mothers popped open the trunk of the dark green Saturn sedan parked in front of the house.

"I don't know if it was instinct, but one of the officers went from car to car and popped the trunk on one of the cars and found the remains of the children," Illsley said.

The temperature at the time was about 96 degrees in the Salt Lake City area.

It was not immediately known how the children got the trunk open. Police late yesterday had not found the key to the vehicle but said there is a device inside the car that automatically opens the trunk.

"We don't know how the trunk was activated, who activated it or why the children were playing in the trunk," Illsley said.

Illsley said there were no witnesses who saw the girls, dressed in bathing suits, climb into the car's trunk.

Autopsies were expected to be performed today on the girls. Police declined to identify them or their families.