KENNESAW - Jennifer D. Peacock, 21, turned herself in at the Cobb County Jail on Friday morning on charges of second-degree cruelty to children and involuntary manslaughter in the death of her 5-month-old female cousin who was left in a hot car outside a day-care center last week, Kennesaw Police said.

She was quickly released on a $25,000 bond.

Peacock, of Kennesaw, listed the Ivy Hall Day School as her employer in Cobb Jail records, and she was taking the child to that center, at 1730 Tuscan Heights Blvd., near the intersection of Cobb Parkway and Old Highway 41 in Kennesaw, on May 25.

Kennesaw police said in a statement that she apparently "forgot the child was in its car seat asleep when she arrived for work at noon."

Police and fire crews were called to the scene several hours later, at 5:51 p.m., and staff members from the center were performing CPR on the child inside the day-care center when fire crews arrived. The baby was pronounced dead at the scene, Kennesaw police said.

The high temperature on May 25 was about 89 degrees.

Peacock was unavailable for comment when the Marietta Daily Journal, the Cherokee Tribune's sister paper, called her home Friday afternoon, and calls to the day-care center went unanswered.

The child-cruelty charge is a felony carrying a potential jail sentence of more than one year. The involuntary manslaughter charge is a misdemeanor.

District Attorney Pat Head said that, in general, if someone has no prior record, it would not be uncommon to receive probation if they are convicted of such a crime.

According to Peacock's warrant, which was issued June 2, she caused the baby's death "without any intention to do so."

Jan Null, an adjunct professor of meteorology at San Francisco State University who specializes in the dynamics of how hot vehicles can get and tracking hyperthermia deaths of children left in vehicles, said according to her research, the Kennesaw death was the fifth case this year in the nation of a child dying of hyperthermia after being left in a car.

Last year, 49 children died nationwide as a result of being left in a car, with three of those cases being in Georgia.

When the temperature outside is 90 degrees, Null said, the temperature inside a car can reach as high as 135.