‘I hope that’s a doll:’ Neighbors find toddler dead outside NH home in freezing cold
Around 4 a.m. on Monday morning, the sound of a child crying woke a woman in Newport, New Hampshire — but the woman and her boyfriend said they soon returned to bed, because they didn’t see anything unusual outside their home on the chilly morning, WMUR reports.
When Shane Rowe and his girlfriend went outside at 7 a.m., though, they spotted a small, unresponsive body outside of their neighbor’s apartment, according to the TV station.
“I saw a little girl next to the bottom of the stairway,” Rowe told WMUR, standing outside and bundled up in the snowy town near the Vermont border. “I said to myself, ‘I hope that’s a doll.’”
It was a 2-year-old girl, who died in what “appears to be a bad accident,” Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs said, according to Valley News.
Temperatures overnight fell below zero, and police said the toddler was wearing only pajamas, Boston 25 reports.
“My girlfriend came out, and she ran out and she went over and saw that she was actually a child,” Rowe told WMUR. “She banged on the door to alert the parents.”
Rowe said the mother picked up the child, bundled her in a blanket and called emergency responders, WMUR reports. Burroughs said the early investigation suggests the girl got out of the apartment “on her own in the early morning hours,” but was unable to get back inside, Patch reports.
The girl’s body was discovered outside a rear apartment — home to two adults and two kids — at the bottom of stairs leading up to a screen porch, Valley News reports. Flowers have been left at the spot where the body was discovered, according to WHDH.
Family said the girl who died is named Sofia, and that she has a twin, WHDH reports.
Lindsay Van Schoick, Sofia’s grandfather, described her as “very precocious, very active, very happy, very independent,” the Boston Herald reports.
“My daughter’s a mess,” Van Schoick said of the girl’s mother, according to the Herald. “We’re all a mess. They just moved here this weekend.”
“It’s got to be devastating,” Rowe told WMUR, “because I know if it were my child, I would be torn apart.”
Police said an autopsy will be performed, WHDH reports.
This story was originally published January 14, 2019 at 4:27 PM with the headline "‘I hope that’s a doll:’ Neighbors find toddler dead outside NH home in freezing cold."