Boy, 3, and two dogs found dead in hot car

SANDPOINT, Idaho — A 3-year-old boy apparently wandered outside and climbed into a hot car with two family dogs Thursday, a north Idaho sheriff’s officer said. The boy and the dogs died.

The child’s cause of death is under investigation but heat is believed to be a major contributing factor, Bonner County sheriff’s Capt. Ror Lakewold said in a telephone interview. Investigators took temperature readings inside the car but Lakewold said he didn’t have those figures Thursday night.

Outdoor temperatures reached the low 80s Thursday in north Idaho, the National Weather Service said.

The boy’s mother and her boyfriend may have fallen asleep in the house in the small community of Spirit Lake near the Washington border, Lakewold said. Detectives believe the child headed out with the dogs and all three of them climbed into the car. The boy was not locked in the vehicle, the officer said.

The mother found him, called for medics and tried to revive him but he was dead at the scene, Lakewold said.

An autopsy was planned Friday. Detectives are trying to determine how long the boy was in the car, the officer said.

“It’s too early in the investigation to say whether charges will be pursued,” he said.