Kerri-Ann Conley, 30, pleads guilty to manslaughter over deaths of girls Darcey and Chloe-Ann

A Queensland mother whose young daughters died after being left in a sweltering car for more than nine hours callously tried to cover her tracks upon discovering their lifeless bodies.

Tributes are seen at a house on Logan Reserve Road, Waterford West. Picture: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt

A woman who left her two young daughters in a hot car for more than nine hours in sweltering heat callously tried to cover her tracks upon discovering their lifeless bodies, disposing of drug bags before calling paramedics.

Toddlers Darcey Conley, aged two-and-a-half, and her little sister 18-month-old Chloe-Ann were left strapped inside their car seats for nine hours between 4am and 1pm on November 23, 2019 in temperatures as high as 61.5 degrees.

Their mother Kerri-Ann Conley, 30, pleaded guilty to their manslaughter in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday morning.

Two year old Darcey Conley (left) and one year old Chloe-Ann were found unresponsive in Kerri-Ann Conley’s car.

The court heard Conley had taken her daughters to a friend’s house at about 11.30pm on November 22 and drove back to their Waterford West property at about 4am.

She left her two little girls strapped in the car seats and went inside where she was on her phone until at least 5.55am before going to sleep.

“At approximately 1.20 that afternoon some nine hours after the defendant went inside the house she came out of the house and approached the car, it was still at that time in direct sun and had been all morning since sunrise,” crown prosecutor Sarah Dennis said.

Conley carried the girls inside the house one at a time, first Darcey and then Chloe-Ann.

Security footage showed instead of immediately calling authorities, Conley disposed of clip-seal bags and called the father of one of the girls before finally calling paramedics.

“The defendant carried both of them inside the house coming out a few minutes later to dispose of a plastic bag in the rubbish bin,” Ms Dennis said.

Investigations revealed the bag she disposed of contained clip-seal bags with residue suspected of being from illicit drugs.

When paramedics arrived, they found the girls with horrific injuries from the sweltering car.

A later autopsy revealed they had both died of hyperthermia.

Kerri-Ann Conley has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Pictured Facebook

Ms Dennis said the little girls had no ability to free themselves from the car, to seek assistance or protect themselves from the “searing temperatures” inside the car.

“The children were of course entirely defenseless and vulnerable to the position the defendant put them in,” Ms Dennis said.

“In my submission her behaviour represented apathy toward her own children and it was a callous thing to do.”

The court heard Conley had regularly left her children in the car on previous occasions, claiming she did it because she didn’t want to rouse them as they were difficult to settle once woken.

In a number of instances, visiting friends retrieved the girls themselves or woke Conley and told her to get them from the car.

Conley, dressed in a floral white top and black pants with her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, wept for much of the proceeding.

The court heard she was a regular drug user and had smoked ice at about midday the day before her children died.

When police arrived on scene, Conley lied to them about her movements the night before.

“Her attempt to dispose of evidence of her own drug use and the timing of that attempt and the lies she told police to minimise her own culpability indicate while shock may have been a factor, her primal instinct was to protect herself … when her primal instinct as mother and caregiver should have been to protect her children,” the prosecutor said.

Darcey and Chloe-Ann were often left in a car by their mother, the court heard.

Defence barrister Jeffrey Hunter KC said the horrific deaths of the two little girls “defies description”.

“The picture painted by the evidence is of a chaotic drug-addicted and delinquent mother who made a tremendously stupid, arguably selfish and admittedly grossly negligent decision to leave her children in the car,” he said.

He said despite evidence Conley had left the girls in the car on previous occasions, witnesses had described her as a “doting mother” and said the children were “well-nourished and well-clothed”.

Mr Hunter submitted Conley did not seek to deny her responsibility for the incident and said at the core of the “inaccuracies” in her account to police was an “acceptance” of her culpability.

“Given the circumstances of their death and my client’s well aware of how they must have suffered she’s also aware of the grave moral guilt that she bears for what happened,” he said.

“And it’s perhaps trite to say but that guilt will be a lifelong burden for her.”

Conley was arrested on the day of the deaths and has been in custody for three years, two months and two weeks.

Mr Hunter said Conley had been in protective custody at the Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre for that entire duration given the nature of the charges against her.

Conley was the first person in Queensland to be charged with murder by reckless indifference but prosecutors accepted pleas to the lesser charges of manslaughter.

Conley pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, possession of dangerous drugs and possessing a drug pipe.

Justice Peter Applegarth has reserved his decision.

Originally published as Kerri-Ann Conley, 30, pleads guilty to manslaughter over deaths of girls Darcey and Chloe-Ann