By Lisa Rathke
Associated Press
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
 AP Photo/Jason R. Henske Vt. rescuers use poles to probe the waters Sunday during the search for a 2-year-old girl who disappeared with her mother. The girl’s body was discovered Monday. |
WARDSBORO, Vt. — The body of a 2 1/2-year-old girl was recovered yesterday down-river from where authorities said her mother had waded into a brook carrying another daughter on Saturday and purposely eluded a would-be rescuer before being swept away.
Grace Waring’s body was found in a section of Wardsboro Brook a day after her mother, Nicole Waring, 40, and her sister, 6-year-old Dakota, died Saturday.
Captain David Covell of the Vermont State Police said Nicole Waring deliberately plunged into the brook.
“For whatever reason, it was a deliberate action,” said Covell, who stopped short of calling the river plunge a suicide attempt.
Nicole Waring, of Wolcott, was reported missing about 7 a.m. Saturday after disappearing from her parents’ Wardsboro house with the two girls about six hours earlier, Vermont State Police said.
As troopers began preparing a search party, Sergeant Robert McCarthy of the State Police spotted Waring and a child standing on the edge of Wardsboro Brook, about 100 yards from the parents’ home.
Normally placid, the brook has been swollen by rain and snowmelt, and has a swift current. It ranges from about 10 feet across to about 30 feet across, and was about 3 feet deep yesterday, although officials said it was running higher Saturday.
McCarthy tried to talk to Waring, but she ignored him and walked into the water holding the child. When McCarthy reached for her, she pushed away and eluded his grasp, plunging into the brook with daughter Dakota in her arms before being swept away, Covell said.
“The sergeant tried to communicate with her. She didn’t respond at all. He was in close enough proximity that she should’ve recognized his presence,” Covell said yesterday.
The 6-year-old was recovered downstream and pronounced dead. Waring’s body was pulled from the brook - about three-quarters of a mile downstream - about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Preliminary findings from autopsies suggested they had drowned, Covell said.
The woman had been despondent, but police would not say why.
“I don’t know particularly what issues were upsetting her, but she had been exhibiting some unusual behavior the day prior to, and during the time Sergeant McCarthy located her,” said Covell.
He said she made no special preparations before leaving her parents’ home, on foot, about 1 a.m. Saturday.
About 50 searchers - from Vermont State Police, Stowe Mountain Rescue, Colchester Technical Rescue, and New England K-9 Search and Rescue - participated in the search, focusing on a six-mile section of Wardsboro Brook and a portion of the West River. The woman’s husband, who was in Massachusetts at the time, has spoken to police, he said. He could not be reached, and a man who answered the telephone at Waring’s parents’ home said family members did not want to talk to a reporter.