Please be careful. This just happened today in Missouri.
Windows in horse trailer were closed, police say
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
By Rex Hall Jr.
rhall@kalamazoogazette.com 388-7784 Windows of a horse trailer that became a death trap for a Marcellus teenager and her younger brother and father were closed when the three were found dead from carbon-monoxide poisoning, investigators in Missouri say.
A generator that apparently had been running in the back of the trailer was out of gas by the time the bodies of Kayla M. Cox, 17, her 14-year-old brother, Derrick, and their father, Jeffrey A. Cox, 40, were found, said Sgt. Ron Thomas of the Jasper County Sheriff's Department.
Kayla Cox was a sophomore at Marcellus High School. Derrick Cox attended middle school in Marcellus but had gone this year to live with his father in Warsaw, Ind., according to school officials.
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Jasper County Sheriff's Department deputies found the three at about 6:40 a.m. at Royalty Arena in Sarcoxie, Mo., where they attended a horse sale that concluded on Saturday. Lt. Derek Walrod said police received a 911 call from Jeffrey Cox's girlfriend, 39-year-old Leslie Hodges, who suffered carbon-monoxide poisoning and hypothermia in the incident but survived.
Deputies found the Coxes dead in the front bedding area of the large horse trailer. A gas generator being used to power an electric heater in the sleeping area was inside the rear of the trailer, Walrod said. All windows in the trailer were closed, Thomas said.
Police said they don't know why the generator was in the trailer but that it may have been put there Sunday night during a thunderstorm. There were no carbon-monoxide detectors or horses in the trailer, Walrod said.
Funeral arrangements were unavailable this morning.