Grandma’s House: The Ezra and Uriel Schock Case

After her little boy died at her parents’ house, Kaila Schock stopped trusting her own mother. Her mom was a retired principal in Wauchula, Florida, a Sunday school teacher who’d spent almost 40 years around kids. Less than a year later, Kaila had a hair appointment, and she asked her mom to watch her new baby girl. Why did Kaila trust her one more time?

Who Was Tracey Nix? A Principal in Wauchula, Florida

If you grew up in Wauchula, Florida, there’s a decent chance Tracey Nix taught you something. She spent almost 40 years in the Hardee County schools, and she worked her way up to principal at North Wauchula Elementary, and even after she retired, she went and took a job at a private school in town.

Wauchula is the county seat of Hardee County, out in farm country in the middle of the state. Tracey taught Sunday school and sang in the choir at church.

She and her husband, Ney, lived out off Kazen Road, with a pond near the house. Their oldest daughter, Kaila, married a guy named Drew Schock, and they had 2 boys, Asher and Ezra.

Tracey drove a Lexus SUV.

Ezra Schock and the Pond on Kazen Road

Ezra was at his grandparents’ house on December 22, 2021. He was 16 months old. He’d fallen asleep in a recliner, and Ney, his grandpa, was getting ready to run to Walmart. Ney left, and Tracey dozed off.

While she slept, Ezra got out of the house and made it under a fence and down to the pond. When Tracey woke up, a garage door was open a crack, and she went looking. She found him face down in the water.

She pulled him out and started CPR, and a neighbor heard her screaming, and when Ney got back he did CPR too. They flew Ezra to Tampa General with a faint pulse.

He died the next day.

When Kaila heard, she raced toward her parents’ place and ended up in a head-on wreck. She was pregnant at the time.

Was anybody going to be charged? The sheriff’s office wanted Tracey charged, and the State Attorney’s Office said no. Prosecutors said Florida case law on drownings needs a caregiver who let a kid get to the water again and again, and to them this looked like a one-time lapse, so they couldn’t prove culpable negligence.

Kaila and Drew both said they stopped trusting Tracey after Ezra died. Kaila also believed in second chances and wanted her mom in her life. She told reporters she kept wondering if she was overreacting, because when your own mom spent her whole career running schools and teaching Sunday school at her church, you start second-guessing yourself. In the end, she let her mom back in with the kids.

Uriel Jane Schock and Lunch at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s

Kaila had a baby girl in March 2022, and they named her Uriel Jane, for what Uriel means in Hebrew, God is my Light. Drew said they took extra steps to protect the kids after Ezra, and nobody’s said publicly what those steps were or whether they covered Tracey babysitting alone.

Kaila had a hair appointment on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, and she asked her mom to watch the baby. Tracey took Uriel to lunch at a Beef ‘O’ Brady’s with 3 friends she’d known for decades. The restaurant’s camera caught Tracey walking in at 12:28 with Uriel in her arms. If you’d been in a booth there, you’d have seen a grandma out with her friends and her baby granddaughter.

Lunch broke up around 1:42. Tracey got home around 2, and she parked the Lexus in the yard with the engine off and the windows up. Uriel’s car seat was in the back, right behind the driver’s seat.

Tracey went into the house and talked to her dog, then she sat down at the piano and practiced for what she later described as a long time, and while she was in there, it got up to about 90 degrees outside.

Uriel was still in her car seat.

“Mom, How Long Has She Been in the Car?”

A little before 5, family started showing up, and that’s when Tracey remembered the baby. Rebecca, Tracey’s other daughter, asked her, “Mom, how long has she been in the car?” Tracey’s answer was, “A while.”

Ney did CPR while Rebecca called 911. Fire rescue pronounced Uriel dead at 5:01.

She was 7 months old.

Kaila found out when an officer showed up at her door, and she told the jury she had to go identify her daughter.

The medical examiner ruled it hyperthermia, meaning her body overheated, and listed it as a homicide, a word medical examiners use for any death caused by another person, so you’ll see it on accidents too.

Detective Alice Fletcher interviewed Tracey with her body camera running, and Tracey told her she just forgot. The judge said later that in that interview, Tracey kept saying she wanted to leave and couldn’t face the community.

Tracey was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child, and with leaving a child in a car. Kaila went to reporters, and you can find the interview where she said her mom needed to go to prison: “As her daughter, it kills me to say it. As their mother, I demand it.” Drew asked how anybody forgets a little girl.

The next spring, Ney told the court that Tracey needed help opening up, and the judge let her go to an inpatient program in St. Cloud, and at the end of that hearing, Kaila, who hadn’t spoken to her mom since the charges, walked over and hugged her, crying.

Inside the Tracey Nix Trial: What the Jury Never Heard

There’d been so much local coverage that the jury got picked from Polk County.

Before testimony, Judge Brandon Rafool ruled that the jury wouldn’t hear about Ezra. Tracey was never charged in Ezra’s death, and the jury had to decide Uriel’s case on Uriel’s evidence. You know about the pond, and those 6 jurors never heard Ezra’s name.

The prosecutor played the restaurant video, and then he walked the jury through Tracey’s afternoon at home, the dog and then the piano, while the Lexus sat in the yard. A crime scene tech testified that Uriel’s car seat sat close enough to the driver’s seat and the rearview mirror that Tracey should have known the baby was there.

The defense attorney, William Fletcher, no relation to Detective Alice Fletcher that I could find, argued this was a terrible accident that fell short of culpable negligence. He wanted a doctor who’d evaluated Tracey to tell the jury she’d been on medications that can impair memory, and the judge kept that out, and Tracey didn’t take the stand, which left Ney as the only defense witness.

The medical examiner told the jury, “Nothing was noted to explain her death except that she was in a hot car.”

If you watched on Court TV, they timed deliberations to the second, and it came to just over 2 hours. The jury found Tracey not guilty of aggravated manslaughter, a charge that carried up to 30 years. They found her guilty of leaving a child in a car for more than 15 minutes and causing great bodily harm. That one maxes out at 5 years.

Why’d they split it? The jurors never explained it publicly anywhere I could find.

Tracey had been out on bond, and she left that courtroom in handcuffs. Kaila stepped out when she saw it, and afterward she said, “It is a win for justice for my daughter.”

Tracey Nix Sentencing and Kaila’s Choice

Sentencing came on April 3, 2025, and this time the judge heard about both kids.

Ney, Tracey’s husband, told the court she mourned in silence after Uriel died and hardly went outside. Then Tracey spoke for herself. She said Uriel’s car seat usually sat behind the passenger seat, and that day it was behind the driver. Her exact words were, “She got quiet and I forgot that she was there.” She said maybe her medications played a part. She told the judge she was in her own prison and it would last all her life, and she said she’d never hurt those babies on purpose.

Drew, the kids’ dad, told the court that 2 of his children had died while Tracey was watching them, and he said he couldn’t understand why anybody in that courtroom was even debating whether she should go to prison.

Kaila turned to face her mom, and you can watch it on the courtroom video, and she told her she still loved her. Then she said, “I hate that I have to choose.”

Judge Rafool said Tracey’s explanations didn’t match the evidence, and he tied Uriel’s death back to Ezra’s. He gave her the maximum, 5 years in state prison with credit for time served, and he asked the people of Hardee County to leave Kaila and Drew’s family in peace. Drew called 5 years a drop in the bucket.

Where the Tracey Nix Case Stands Now

If you look her up, Tracey is Florida inmate P72590, with a projected release in July 2029. She appealed her conviction, and in June 2025 Judge Rafool denied her bond, writing that the appeal raised nothing fairly debatable and pointing to Ezra’s death as part of why she was a danger to the community. I couldn’t find a ruling yet. When the local paper covered her move to state prison, the piano showed up again, right in the one sentence summing up her conviction. Kaila and Drew said after sentencing that they could finally start to grieve.