Man sentenced for leaving son in car last winter

The Spokane father who left his barefoot 2-year-old son alone in a car for more than five hours in near-freezing temperatures on the South Hill last winter will serve about four months in jail.

Charles B. Fife, 52, pleaded guilty in March to a misdemeanor child abandonment charge and was sentenced to 124 days in jail with credit for four served. He will be on probation for 12 months following his release.

Fife left his son in the car near Comstock Park in 33-degree weather the evening of Jan. 6, 2015. Police found him after Fife went into a gas station around 8 p.m. and told the clerk he had left his son in a parked car about an hour ago and couldn’t find him, court documents say. The clerk called police.

After officers located Fife, he told them he parked his car while his son was sleeping and walked around the block to find a friend named Adam, but he was unable to provide details about where his friend lived, court records say.

Officers found the boy shivering and unresponsive in the unlocked car around 9:45 p.m., court documents say. He’d been in the car since 4:30 p.m. wearing only a diaper, pants and a T-shirt. Police described his legs and arms as “ice cold” and said his diaper was soaked through.

An officer brought the boy to a nearby home to warm up before taking him to the hospital about half an hour later. The boy survived the ordeal and was back home with his mother recovering a few days later.

The boy’s mother said she worked two jobs to support her son and that Fife did not have custody or pay child support. She left her son in the care of her sister on that January day while she went to work. A few days after the incident, she told The Spokesman-Review she thought her sister may have taken the boy to play with Fife.

Fife was originally charged with felony child abandonment after his arrest in January. He was released from jail after paying a $250 bond.

His wife, Lisa Fife, said he had left the house to calm down after an argument and likely forgot where he parked because he wasn’t familiar with the area. But the boy’s mother said it was more likely he was on drugs at the time.

Fife was not tested for drugs or charged with a drug crime in connection with the incident. He has a lengthy criminal history with 12 felony convictions, including bank robbery and assault.

Fife has not yet begun to serve his sentence, jail records show.