A two-year-old boy named Frankie Rodenbaugh is dead, and the babysitter his family trusted with their children for years now faces manslaughter charges. Aimee Cotton, 41, allegedly left Frankie strapped in the back of her car for roughly four hours on March 13, 2025, without adequate clothing, food, or water.

The Daily Mail reported that he was rushed to the hospital by helicopter after Cotton called 911 to report he had stopped breathing. Six days later, Frankie died of cardiac arrest brought on by hypothermia.

Cotton has pleaded not guilty and is currently free on bail, awaiting trial.

His father, Matt Rodenbaugh, does not mince words about what happened to his son.

"She tortured my child."

Four Hours in the Car

The Rodenbaugh family lives in the Martha's Vineyard enclave of Massachusetts. Cotton picked Frankie up from the family's $2.1 million home on the morning of March 13 and drove to her own home in Oak Bluffs.

According to Matt Rodenbaugh, who later reviewed footage of that day, Cotton arrived at her home around 9 a.m. Frankie and another child remained strapped in the car until approximately 1 p.m.

Four hours. A toddler buckled into a car seat, calling out for his father, with no one coming.

Rodenbaugh described what investigators found when they enhanced the audio from the footage:

"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."

That silence is the part no parent should ever have to imagine. Matt Rodenbaugh had to listen to it.

A Family's Trust, Shattered

This was not a stranger. Cotton had previously cared for Frankie's older sister, now six, for the first three years of her life. She was embedded in the family's daily routine, someone the Rodenbaugh parents considered close.

"She was somebody really close to us and somebody we trusted."

When police initially moved to arrest Cotton, the Rodenbaugh family resisted. Matt Rodenbaugh said he and his wife both pushed back, telling authorities they loved Aimee and believed she was a good caretaker. It was only after Massachusetts State Police showed him the footage that the full picture came into focus.

The father described the amount of damage Cotton has inflicted as "unimaginable," not just to his family but to the broader community.

Six Days of Agony

After Cotton allegedly called 911, she contacted Frankie's mother. Matt Rodenbaugh recounted the phone call:

"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.'"

What followed were six days in the hospital that no family should endure. The updates were grim from the start. Doctors told Rodenbaugh they had lost Frankie's heart rate and that neurological signals were fading. The medical staff kept repeating one phrase that Rodenbaugh understood all too well.

"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."

The tragedy compounded. While Frankie fought for his life, Matt Rodenbaugh's father, Frankie's namesake and the grandfather the boy called "Pap Pap," suddenly died after having a pacemaker put in.

When the family finally made the decision to let Frankie go, his father held his hand.

"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.'"

A Boy Who Hugged Everyone

Frankie Rodenbaugh was, by every account from his father, the kind of child who made a room lighter. Matt called him his "mini-me." He described the daily ritual that will never happen again:

"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."

He'd hug everyone, Rodenbaugh said. Just a super happy little kid.

That is who was left strapped in a car for four hours on a March morning in Massachusetts. A two-year-old who ran to the gate when he heard his dad coming home.

Justice, Pending

Cotton was charged with manslaughter by Massachusetts State Police. She has pleaded not guilty. She is free on bail. Her attorney, Harrison Barrow III, has not publicly commented on the case based on available reports.

The legal process will unfold. A trial will come. The facts, including that footage and its audio, will be presented to a jury that will have to reckon with what happened in Oak Bluffs on March 13.

For Matt Rodenbaugh, the process cannot move fast enough. He buried his father and his son in the same stretch of grief. He trusted someone with the most precious thing in his life, and that trust was met with what he describes plainly as torture.

Frankie called out for his Dada until the video went silent. A courtroom owes that boy an answer.