METAIRIE, La., June 2 (UPI) -- A mother who left her 20-month-old son in a parked car with the body of a dead friend at a Louisiana gas station has been charged, authorities said.
Jessica Ockman, 33, of Metairie, La., was taken into custody at a service station last week after employees found her unconscious in the restroom, Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, said.
Deputies found Ockman unresponsive on the restroom floor along with a lighter and a spoon, and recovered a box containing marijuana apparently dumped in a garbage can, Fortunato said.
When the deputies walked to her car, parked at one of the fuel pumps, they found Ockman's son, left for more than an hour with the body of 22-year-old Shelby Fleming of Lafourche Parish, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Wednesday.
Fleming was pronounced dead at the scene, a determination of cause of death awaiting the outcome of toxicology tests, police said.
Ockman was charged with child desertion, obstruction of justice, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Ockman was not charged in connection with Fleming's death, which investigators say was not the result of a criminal act.
The child was taken to a local hospital for evaluation. There was no word on his condition, The Times-Picayune reported.
