Little Pink Sandals

Sharon and I were at a local campground visiting my mom and her husband. It was early spring and we had planned to go bike riding on the trails while we were there. I was assigned to Investigations at that time and was on call. On call meant that I had to be ready to report to duty within 20 minutes if I was paged. We had just finished unloading the bikes when my pager went off. I went to the campground office to call the PD and found that there had been a drowning. They gave me the address at an apartment complex.

I had to leave her with them without transportation. I changed into jeans, shirt, and jacket and began attaching all the tools of the trade in the bathhouse. Wearing all that stuff while in uniform isn’t that bad, it all has a place to go on your duty belt. On the other hand, plain clothes suck! There isn’t a woman’s belt sturdy enough to hold all that weight so it’s a fight the whole time. I had to run by the PD and pick up photography equipment and off I went to the complex.

I arrived at the pool area and met with officers. The victims had already been transported to the hospital, thank goodness. I went to the pool area to start taking pictures. I just found out that 2 people drowned, not one. A drowning is always bad. Water and human flesh is not a good combination. I was relieved to find out that they had only been in the water a short time.

As I entered the fence around the pool, I saw a couple of beach towels across a chair. A cloth bag was beside the chair. Goggles and Barbie dolls were peeking out of the top. There were a couple of soft drink cans on the table along with an open bag of chips. A little white t-shirt with blue flowers and a pair of blue shorts were scattered under the table. A large man’s robe was piled up in the middle of the table. I took pictures from several angles of all of this and carefully collected each item into evidence bags.

I turned my attention to the pool. The first thing that I saw was a pair of little pink sandals. They were haphazardly placed as if the child was excited and had kicked them off in a hurry. The small size of the sandals caused my guts to wrench. I had not been told anything about the victims. The little girl could only be two or three years old.

I finished taking pictures and collecting evidence. I then went looking for witnesses. The apartment manager said that he had seen a man with his little girl as he opened the gate that morning. She was yanking at his hand wanting her daddy to hurry up so they could get into the water. It was the first day that the pool was opened and the manager warned them that the water would be pretty cold. The daddy said that he had not gotten to spend time with his little girl in a long time and he had promised. The manager said that he left and went to the office.

I found another guy that had seen them on his way to wash clothes. He said that the little girl was splashing in the shallow end and was squealing with glee. Her daddy was sitting on the side dangling his feet in the water laughing. He went on to put in his clothes. When he came back by, they were gone. A little later, he heard someone yelling to call an ambulance. Someone else had gone to the pool and found them.

The couple that found them said they saw all the stuff and figured that they went back in to get something. Went they got their stuff set up, they went to get into the pool. That’s when they saw the daddy on the bottom of the deep end. The little girl was also on the bottom with her arms wrapped around her daddy’s legs. They jumped in and pulled them out but it was too late.

I left the apartments and went to the hospital. After talking to the doctor, I went in to photograph the father. He was rather heavy set but nothing else was evident. There was no sign of trauma. I took a deep breath and entered the room where the little girl’s body lay on the gurney. She looked like she was sleeping. She had on the cutest little pink and white poke dot one piece swim suit. Her hair was pulled up and had little clear balls holding her hair in pig tails. A few strands of hair had pulled out, falling across her face. I wanted to cry. It was so sad. I had to suck it up and push it all down so I could remain professional. I took the pictures that I had to take. The nurse helped me remove the suit and turn her. It was one of the hardest things that I ever had to do! No matter how hard you make your heart, children just get to you.

Someone came in then and said that the mother had just arrived at the hospital. I looked at them in disbelief. “Are you telling me that she doesn’t know yet?” She only knew that her daughter had been brought to the hospital. SHIT!!! I was trying to think if this day could possibly get any worse. I should not have asked.

I went and got the mother, grandmother, two aunts, and a friend of the family. I was assuming that the man was her husband. NEVER ASSUME. I started by telling them that her husband and her little girl had gone swimming. I was quickly corrected. She told me that her daughter was with her daddy but he was not her husband. She went on to tell me that she was going to kill him if he had let anything happen to her child! She had been fighting with him in court for months to keep him from having unsupervised visits. She claimed that he was totally irresponsible and he had a medical condition that made it not safe for him to have her alone. I stopped her and asked what this condition was. She told me that he had seizures that were brought on when he was under any kind of stress. She said that the court forced her to let him have her for an overnight. He had picked her up for the first time the previous night.

I started out by asking if he could swim. She told me that she didn’t know. The family friend said that he could not. I again told them that they went swimming this morning. It appeared that they got into the deep end of the pool and got in trouble. She again said that she was going to kill him. I softly told her that he was dead, he had drowned. She said that she didn’t give a damn, where was her daughter? I had to tell her that her daughter had drowned also. She stood there a few seconds, looking at me as if she didn’t hear me correctly. She started wailing, cursing, slinging her arms around, and then she stopped. She looked at me and said, “Fuck you, fuck the law, the law killed my little girl, she’s dead because of you, you made me let her go with him, fuck him!”

She kept on yelling and crying. I just stood there saying that I was sorry for her loss. Can you think of a more inadequate thing to say? I had no words to tell her what I felt and I had to keep my feelings to myself, be professional, i.e. cold.

When I took her in to see her daughter, she just went still, almost limp. She went to the bed, grabbed up her daughter in her arms and wept. I left. The family friend thanked me on the way out. She apologized for the cursing that I took. I just smiled, thanked her, and said that I understood. After we put the pieces together, we think that the girl got in over her head. Daddy jumped in to try to save her. He got excited; he couldn’t swim, and had a seizure after he grabbed her. He sank to the bottom pulling her with him. A freak turn of events would have had such a different outcome if anyone else had been at the pool at the time.

It was dark by the time I got back to the campground. Sharon was way over the extra long visit by herself! I was way over having a jolly good time so we packed up and went home.