Wife of police officer dies after getting trapped in backseat of his sweltering patrol SUV

THE wife of a police officer died last week in what authorities believe to be a freak accident after she got stuck in her husband’s car on a sweltering day.

Investigators believe Clara Paulino, 56, crawled into the back of her husband’s patrol SUV, which was parked in front of the family’s Miami Shores, Florida, home, on Friday, and got stuck there for several hours, according to the Miami Herald.

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Her husband was reportedly sleeping inside the home after finishing a midnight shift.

Authorities said Paulino was not able to honk the horn to wake him up or get help because of a partition between the front and back seats in the police car.

Investigators believe Paulino climbed into the marked Ford Explorer SUV in search of something when the car door closed and the self-locking mechanism – which is standard in police vehicles to keep detained suspects inside – went off.

Temperatures in the area were in the 90s on Friday and police believe Paulino got stuck in the vehicle around 1pm.

Her family found her body around 5.30pm.

Miami-Dade County detectives found her fingerprints all over the SUV, indicating she was desperately trying to get out, the Miami Herald reported.

Her husband, Arstides Paulino, a 25-year veteran of the force who has reportedly worked the midnight shift for about two decades, apparently came home and went right to bed, leaving the SUV unlocked.

The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office will rule on the cause of death, however, authorities said that Paulino had a history of health problems, which may have contributed to her death inside the vehicle.

Miami-Dade Police Lieutenant Carlos Rosario said the case is still “very preliminary.”

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” he said. “But right now, it’s an unclassified death.”