Father of California girl who died in overheated car with allegedly drunk mother speaks out (exclusive)

Relatives smashed the window of the white Ford Expedition, which was parked near the mother's California apartment, and pulled the limp three-year-old from the sweltering car.

But Ily Elizabeth Ruiz was already dead. In a press release, the Anaheim Police Department said they believe she died on Friday, September 6, from heat stroke. (Her autopsy is pending.)

Her mother, Sandra Hernandez-Cazares – who was unconscious in the locked vehicle and had “a blood alcohol content of nearly four times the legal limit,” according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney's Office – is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse causing serious bodily injury, with an enhanced penalty due to Ily's age, according to online court information.

In the press release, prosecutors said Hernandez-Cazares and the father of her four children had advocated for stricter laws against drunk driving after their two young sons were fatally struck by a drunk driver while camping in North Dakota in 2012.

In a phone interview with PEOPLE, the father, Juan Ruiz, recalled the earlier accident, saying he suffered a collapsed lung and heart failure and had to be flown out of the campsite by helicopter.

“They should have let me die there too,” says Ruiz. “I wouldn't go through that again.”

The grieving father, who named his youngest child after the abbreviation of “I love you,” called Ily “my princess” and remembered her “bubbly personality” and her love of “everything princess-related,” especially Frozen's Elsa.

In pictures and videos he shared of his daughter and five-year-old son, Lazarus Ruiz, the children can be seen making scrambled eggs and cooking hot dogs on the stove while the little girl grins at the camera with a fork in her hand.

Such quiet days were part of the life he rebuilt after the loss of Cyris Alexander Ruiz, 9, and Alaries Marcos Ruiz, 5.

“We talked about how Lazarus shouldn't grow up as an only child,” Ruiz recalls of the decision to have Ily. “And now I only have one child.”

Ruiz says Hernandez-Cazares, whom he met in high school, never recovered from the death of her eldest sons.

The couple separated two years ago.

“She would never intentionally do something like that to her daughter,” he says. “But it doesn't change what is being done.”

According to prosecutors, family members searched for the 42-year-old mother on Friday, September 6, after Lazarus' daycare reported that he had not been picked up.

At about 4:20 p.m., authorities responded to the 1300 block of N. Fashion Lane, where prosecutors said relatives and paramedics attempted to resuscitate Ily, who had died in what prosecutors described as “extreme temperatures.”

Doctors believe Ily had been dead for several hours before relatives found her in the vehicle, which, according to prosecutors and police, was littered with “empty alcohol bottles.”

According to the public prosecutor's office, Hernandez-Cazares was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.30 per mille in the hospital.

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District Attorney Todd Spitzer, in a statement, referred to “the unimaginable pain” of her sons' tragic deaths in 2012 and said such a “devastating tragedy” has “ripple effects of grief,” adding: “A mother who was robbed of the chance to see two of her sons grow up because of a stranger's selfish decision must now live with the fact that because of her choices, she will never see her little daughter grow up.”

Ruiz, who worked in an oil field in Texas to support his family, says everything changed suddenly for the second time with the death of her third child.

After Ily's death, he quit his job and traveled to California, where he attended a hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 11, where he told PEOPLE that he had been granted partial custody of Lazarus, who Child Protective Services had originally placed in the care of an aunt.

His voice broke when Ruiz said in an interview just days after his daughter's death that his son did not yet know his sister had died because he wanted to “explain” it to him himself. He added: “This is going to be hard for him. So if I want my son to get out of this, I have to be there for him. My son needs me.”

Meanwhile, Hernandez-Cazares, who is being held in the Orange County Jail on $150,000 bail, faces a maximum sentence of 12 years if convicted on all counts, according to prosecutors.

Her first court date was Tuesday, September 10, and according to online court information, her arraignment and bail review is scheduled for October 1.

Her public defender, Catherine Gardner, did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

Ruiz says he does not want the mother of his children to be slandered.

“Sandy was a good mother when she was doing well,” he says. “She needs help, she would never do this on purpose. I don't want people to hate her. Just leave the hate to me.”

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help Juan Ruiz plan his funeral.