Attorney: Couple should not be charged in death of 7-month-old girl left in car

ST. LOUIS -- The parents of a 7-month-old girl who died in a sweltering car should not be charged with a crime, their attorney said.

"We all agree there's no intent," attorney Art Margulis said Friday. "That's obvious. It was just a tragic set of circumstances brought about by miscommunication."

Sophia Knutsen of Richmond Heights died Thursday when she was left in her parents' car in a parking lot at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to file charges in her death.

Her father, Russell Knutsen, and her mother, Dr. Beth Ann Kozel, were questioned by police detectives for about two hours on Friday. Kozel is a pediatrician at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and Knutsen is a researcher in a lab on the Washington University campus.

"They were weeping through half of it," Margulis said, but answered all of the detectives' questions.

Margulis said the child's death was the result of miscommunication.

He said Kozel left the couple's home with the baby and picked up her husband at the lab. They traded places and he drove her three blocks to the hospital, then parked the car.

Kozel apparently thought her husband would take Sophia to the hospital's on-site day care, Margulis said, but she did not tell him the baby was in the back seat.

"I think she was totally distracted," Margulis said.

Knutsen didn't see the baby because she was in the back seat in a rear-facing child seat.

The couple, who also have a 5-year-old son, do not blame each other for Sophia's death, Margulis said.

"They are extraordinarily supportive of each other," Margulis said. "You can see it's a solid relationship."

Assistant circuit attorney Ed Postawko declined to discuss the case in specific terms.