Mom who left baby in garage gets 4 years

A tearful Heather Heck apologized this afternoon for leaving her baby alone in her garage while she traveled to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, saying she would be punished for her actions for the rest of her life.

That didn’t stop county Common Pleas Judge Edward Zaleski from sentencing the 24-year-old Lorain woman to four years in prison.

Wesley Cales, the father of the now 1-year-old boy, named Samuel, said he didn’t understand why Heck never told him about her pregnancy or that she’d given birth to his son. He said he had planned to marry Heck.

Heck, who kept the birth of her son secret and routinely left him home alone while she worked, refused her attorney’s efforts to get the sentencing delayed. Attorney James Barilla said he learned from Heck’s mental health counselor that a she claimed to have left Samuel in the care of another woman, but police and prosecutors weren’t able to confirm the woman existed.