2 sisters die after climbing into parked car

Shawn Day

The Arizona Republic

Aug. 16, 2003 09:39 PM

Two young sisters were found dead inside a car parked behind their Queen Creek home Saturday afternoon.

Samantha and Kaitlynn Mills, ages 2 and 4, were not breathing and had no pulse when a family member found them in the backseat and called police at 5:49 p.m., Pinal County Sheriff's Commander Jerald Monahan said.

The girls had been outside playing while their father and grandfather worked on a car in front of the house in the 4500 block of East Rolling Ridge Road. They apparently climbed inside the broken-down car parked in the back yard, Monahan said. Family members realized they hadn't seen the girls for about 45 minutes and began searching for them.

Temperatures in the area reached 99 degrees Saturday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

Family members, police and paramedics tried to resuscitate the girls before they were flown to Desert Samaritan Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead, Monahan said.

Richard Cisneros, 17, lives next door to the Mills family and described them as "kind of to themselves, but a nice family."

"It's a really, really sad thing, but accidents happen," Cisneros said. "I'm pretty sure this was an accident."