Ms. Traylor was arraigned Sunday by Justice of the Peace Bill Cook of Killeen on $50,000 bail for abandonment of a child.
Attorney Ted Potter, representing Ms. Traylor, requested a hearing on Thursday to petition Judge Joe Carroll in 27th District Court for a reduction of bail to $2,500.
Potter argued that Ms. Traylor couldn’t afford bail in that amount and unless the bail was reduced to a reasonable amount Ms. Traylor would be forced to remain in jail until trial. He said the state was not ready for trial.
Assistant district attorney Lou Bechtol confirmed that a trial date has not yet been set.
Bechtol said Carroll considered the denial on two main points.
“The nature of the offense was No.1,” Bechtol said. “And he wanted to ensure she would appear for trial.”
Bechtol said Traylor has no prior criminal record and is not considered a flight risk.
Court records show that police and emergency medical personnel were summoned to the H.E.B. grocery store on Trimmier Boulevard in Killeen on Saturday when a passer-by saw an infant locked in a car with the window up in the parking lot.
Witnesses said they tried to locate the child’s guardian or caretaker but could not. Officers said when they looked inside the vehicle the baby seemed dazed and disoriented, according to the arrest affidavit.
They smashed out a rear window, unlocked the car and placed the baby in an ambulance to cool it.
The arrest affidavit said a car drove up shortly afterward and a woman got out who acknowledged that the vehicle, a green Chevy Cavalier, was hers.
The report said she told officers she had been shopping with a friend and thought the baby was in the care of a boyfriend, according to the affidavit.
Police said that later when signing a written statement Ms. Traylor revealed that she told her boyfriend she was going to the store and taking the child with her, the affidavit said. In that statement she also wrote that she saw her boyfriend but not the child in the car before she left for the store, the affidavit said.
Police said the baby was locked in the car in 100-degree heat for at least 17 minutes before they arrived, according to the affidavit.
Ms. Traylor remains in custody in the Bell County Jail.
