JUST ONE STATION: Father of boy who died in babysitter’s care on Martha’s Vineyard speaks out

The father of a boy who died in his babysitter’s care on Martha’s Vineyard in March spoke to 7NEWS Tuesday outside court, where a 40-year-old woman is facing several charges in connection to the boy’s death.

Aimee Cotton, of Oak Bluffs, was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Superior Court after being indicted by a grand jury. She’s accused of leaving two-year-old Frankie Rodenbaugh in her car for several hours, causing him to become unresponsive. The toddler died days later. She pleaded not guilty to several charges including manslaughter and reckless endangerment of a child. She had no comment for 7NEWS outside court.

On March 13, police said Cotton dialed 911 to report an unresponsive child in her car that was in the driveway of her Oak Bluffs home. Officers responded and found Cotton attempting to perform CPR on the toddler, who was in the back seat.

Emergency responders rushed the two-year-old to a local hospital, and he was eventually flown to Mass General Hospital in Boston. The boy passed away six days later.

The District Attorney reports Cotton originally claimed that she left Frankie, and another infant she was caring for from a different family, in her car for 15 minutes. Surveillance video from Cotton’s home and a police investigation showed the time span was closer to three hours.

The toddler suffered hypothermia and never recovered.

Rodenbaugh said Cotton cared for his older daughter, 6, and they got to know her because Frankie’s mother taught Cotton’s children in elementary school.

7NEWS spoke with Frankie’s father outside court Tuesday.

When asked if it was difficult to be there, Frankie’s father responded, “Yeah. It keeps you up at night, it’s horrific, there’s just a lot of horrific details, yeah it’s very hard,” said Matthew Rodenbaugh, Frankie’s father.

Despite the challenge, Rodenbaugh said bringing light to this incident and carrying on his son’s legacy is paramount.

“Anything we can do to bring justice for my son is the most important part,” Rodenbaugh told 7NEWS.

The Rodenbaugh family said they are determined to have some good come from their situation, so they started a GoFundMe to raise money to help rebuild Oak Bluffs Playground, which is at the elementary school where Frankie’s mother works as a teacher. They have raised nearly $275,000.

Cotton posted nearly $24,000 cash bail and she was released with GPS monitoring; there are only certain places she can go. She will be back in court for a pretrial hearing in February.