Colleton County trial begins in child's death in hot vehicle

Jun 02, 2023

Rita Pangalangan and Larry King. Colleton County Sheriff's Office/Provided

WALTERBORO — Four years after a child died inside a vehicle of heatstroke, her mother and the mother’s boyfriend are standing trial for murder on allegations they purposefully left the wheelchair-bound and speechless girl inside a car in the heat of summer.

Rita M. Pangalangan and Larry Eugene King Jr. are charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and unlawful conduct toward a child in the Aug. 5, 2019, death of 13-year-old Cristina Pangalangan.

The victim was left in a vehicle for at least five hours.

The girl was born with severe intellectual and physical disabilities that confined her to a wheelchair and left her speechless, according to a lawsuit filed by the child’s estate. The complaint alleges the teen died “a tortuous death of extreme pain and suffering.”

Cristina Pangalangan died Aug. 5, 2019, after she had been left for five hours inside a hot vehicle in Colleton County. She was 13. Provided

Cristina Pangalangan was the 19th child in South Carolina to die since 1998 of heatstroke inside a vehicle, according to noheatstroke.org, a national database that tracks pediatric vehicular heatstroke fatalities.

Her mother and King are accused of placing the 13-year-old inside a Volkswagen Jetta at 11 a.m. outside King’s home on Lowcountry Highway.

Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone indicated during a pretrial hearing Aug. 28 that Pangalangan and King were under the influence of methenamine on the fateful day.

The mother checked on the child at 12:15 p.m., according to affidavits written by Colleton County Sheriff’s deputies. She went to check on her daughter again at 3 p.m. and couldn’t gain entry into the vehicle because it was locked.

Instead of breaking into the vehicle, Pangalangan and King left the house to retrieve another set of keys. When they returned at 4:15 p.m., the child was dead.

Pangalangan and King appeared in a Walterboro courtroom Aug. 28. After a lengthy jury selection, lawyers sparred over pretrial motions in front of Judge Clifton Newman.

Rita Pangalangan was employed by the Colleton County School District. Several of her family members appeared in the courtroom. Her younger sister indicated she was present on behalf of the state.

The victim's uncle, Alan Grym, said his niece was not "needy." Cristina could maneuver her body to get items from the kitchen and pick up a television remote to indicate she wanted to fast-forward through commercials.

He recalled the child's love of cartoons, including "Dora the Explorer" and "SpongeBob SquarePants," and how happy she was in a swimming pool.

"She was loving. She wanted to be held," Grym said. "She wanted attention and affection like any kid."

Opening arguments will begin 9:30 a.m. Aug. 29.

Reach Ema Schumer at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @emaschumer.

Students aren’t bouncing back from the pandemic as quickly as educators hoped, intensifying worries about how they will fare as they enter high school and college-level math courses Read moreHow can schools dig out from a generation’s worth of lost math progress?

Carolina Forest's elementary schools are particularly overcrowded. Carolina Forest Elementary is at 126% capacity, Ocean Bay Elementary is at 132% and River Oaks Elementary is at 150%, according to county planning records. Read moreTwo Carolina Forest elementary schools scheduled to break ground in early 2024

Moving rapidly toward Florida, Hurricane Idalia's likely arrival in South Carolina on Wednesday could bring high winds and 4 to 8 inches of rain the same day as a seasonal king tide, a trifecta of potential disruptions that had emergency officials in South Carolina scrambling to prepare. Read moreTropical trifecta of king tides, rain and wind could swamp Lowcountry as Idalia closes in

Authorities have not announced charges against the Rosewood neighborhood resident who shot and killed a University of South Carolina student who was trying to enter the wrong house, but case draws attention to controversial Castle Doctrine. Read moreQuestions surround shooting death of USC student who tried to enter wrong house