The Gainesville Police Department (GPD) filed a sworn complaint Monday against Christina Shantell Gordan, 29, recommending two charges of manslaughter for the deaths of her 6-month-old and 22-month-old children following a car crash in July.
The State Attorney’s Office will now review the complaint and decide whether to formally charge Gordan with two charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child, a first-degree felony.
In the sworn complaint, GPD Officer Lynne Valdes said Gordan failed to follow Florida law and properly restrain her children in the vehicle.
At the crash scene, Valdes reported that a body worn camera records Gordan saying the children were not buckled up, but at the hospital, she changed her statement to law enforcement, saying both had been buckled in the passenger seat.
The wreck happened on Williston Road at the interchange with I-75. Gordan was traveling west when a vehicle failed to yield when turning onto the interstate ramp and hit Gordan’s 2019 Nissan Altima, the wreck report said.
According to the GPD, witnesses arrived at Gordan’s car and found the 6-month-old baby on the floorboard of the driver’s seat, between Gordan’s feet. Gordan told the witnesses that there was another baby, and the 22-month-old was found on the floorboard of the passenger seat.
Both children died from injuries after being trauma alerted to UF Health Shands Hospital.
The sworn complaint also said the GPD officers found the seat belts for both the driver and passenger sides locked in place.
“Based on the injuries to [Victim 1], the location of [Victim 1], and blood present on the steering wheeler airbag, it is believed that [the 6-month old] was sitting in the lap of [Gordan]. [Victim 2] is believed to have been sitting in the front passenger seat, unrestrained,” Valdes wrote in her complaint.
GPD said an infant’s child seat, without the bottom, was found in the trunk of the car and not in use.
The driver of the other vehicle, Dioslay Moreno of Williston, will face charges of failing to yield, police said. That charge was sent last week to the State Attorney’s Office.