A two-year-old boy named Frankie Rodenbaugh died after being left restrained in a car for roughly four hours on March 13, 2025, and the longtime babysitter charged in the case has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.
The Rodenbaugh family lives in the Martha’s Vineyard area of Massachusetts, and the child’s death has shaken their community. According to family accounts, Aimee Cotton, 41, picked Frankie up from the family home and drove him to her residence in Oak Bluffs, where he remained in a car seat for hours. Emergency crews later airlifted Frankie to a hospital, and six days after the incident he died; doctors attributed his death to cardiac arrest brought on by hypothermia. Cotton has been charged with manslaughter by state police and has entered a not guilty plea while awaiting trial.
“She tortured my child.”
Family statements paint a grim timeline: Cotton reportedly arrived at her home around 9 a.m., and video reviewed later by the father showed Frankie still buckled in until about 1 p.m. That four-hour gap is at the center of the criminal case and the family’s grief. Matt Rodenbaugh says he watched enhanced footage and heard his son calling out repeatedly during that stretch of time. Those audio details are being treated as critical evidence as investigators and prosecutors prepare their case.
“They enhanced the audio of the video, and he can be heard calling out for ‘Dada’ over and over and over again, until the video went silent.”
The relationship between the family and Cotton complicates the picture. She had cared for the older sister for years and was woven into the household routine, which is why the parents initially pushed back when police began investigating. Matt Rodenbaugh said he and his wife told officers they loved Aimee and viewed her as a trusted caregiver, and only after seeing the enhanced footage did the full scope of what happened become clear. That sense of betrayal is a constant refrain — someone close to the family was responsible for the child in that car.
“She was somebody really close to us and somebody we trusted.”
The immediate aftermath was chaotic and painful. Cotton is said to have called 911 reporting that Frankie had stopped breathing, and she then contacted Frankie’s mother in a distraught state. Matt Rodenbaugh recounted the phone exchange in stark terms, describing confusion and disbelief as they learned their child had been taken to the hospital. The family endured six days of declining hope, with doctors sharing increasingly dire updates about neurological function and heart activity.
“She said ‘Frankie’s in an ambulance. He’s not breathing. I’m headed to the hospital now.’ I just kept saying ‘What do you mean, what happened?’ She’s like ‘I don’t know, I don’t know anything. Aimee called me crying.'”
As the hospital battle unfolded, the family suffered another blow when Frankie’s grandfather, the boy’s namesake, suddenly died after a medical procedure. The overlapping grief left Matt Rodenbaugh holding the hardest decisions, and he ultimately sat with his son as the family chose to remove life-sustaining measures. The image of those final moments remains with him and is part of the emotional testimony he has offered to reporters and investigators.
“They keep telling me ‘we’re very, very worried about Frankie’ and that’s exactly how they would tell me. I knew, I knew what that meant.”
People who knew Frankie described him as joyful and affectionate, the sort of toddler who greeted his father at the gate every day with a loud call and a hug. Matt called him his “mini-me” and shared memories of routine, laughter, and small rituals that now stand as what was lost. Those personal recollections give shape to what could otherwise become just a series of dates and charges in a court file.
“I held his hand, and I just kept saying, ‘Go to Pap Pap.’ That’s what he called my dad. I held his hand for a long time and just kept saying, ‘Go to Pap Pap.'”
The legal process is set to follow its course. Cotton remains free on bail as the case moves toward trial, and prosecutors say evidence including the footage and audio will be central to proving what happened. For the Rodenbaugh family, the criminal case is one step in a long process toward accountability amid profound personal loss. The community continues to grapple with how a trusted caregiver came to be at the center of such a tragedy.
“Every day I’d come home from work he would hear me coming and the dogs would bark, and he’d run to the gate here and yell, ‘Dada!’ and a big, huge hug.”
