NEWPORT, N.H. (WHDH) - A New Hampshire community is mourning the loss of a 2-year-old girl who police say was found dead in the bitter cold early Monday morning.
Investigators believe the girl left her Newport house on her own during the early morning hours and then couldn’t get back in, according to Newport police.
Family members have identified the girl as Sofia Van Schoick.
A neighbor told police that he woke up around 4 a.m. to the sound of a child crying but couldn’t see anything. He and his girlfriend reportedly found the girl in just her pajamas about three hours later at the bottom of a set of stairs outside 10 Maple St.
Van Schoick’s grandfather says that the family had just moved to the home three days ago and believes his granddaughter became disoriented.
“We’ll never know what happened,” he told 7News. “Why didn’t she go back up the stairs? Did she fall down the stairs? We don’t know.”
Temperatures dipped below zero in Newport overnight.
“We were experiencing very frigid temperatures,” Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs said. “That appears to be certainly playing a factor in this death.”
Preliminary autopsy results showed Van Schoick died from hypothermia and exposure to the elements.
Burroughs is calling the girl’s death an “accident.”
Van Schoick was said to be “very precocious, very active and a very happy” girl.
A makeshift memorial has been set up at the scene of the tragedy.
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