FL - Ethan, 5, & Liliana Herrera, 4, found suffocated, East Naples, 24 Jan 2009

[Lovejac]

I have come to the conclusion that it must have been ruled a tragic accident too.

Well, I thank God that they were together. They looked like they were so close with each other. From what I've read, Lilly looked up to her big brother. I pray that God brings their parents some comfort.

 

[SeekingJana]

This is so incredibly sad. I have wondered, since it was the little girl's birthday, if maybe there had been a small party with kids playing games like " Hide and Seek". This is the most likely scenario I could come up with for the two kids hiding together in a very unlikely and tiny space and not being missed for the time it took them to perish.

Also, when I was a child, children could get trapped inside one side of a side by side refrigerator and suffocate. I don't know if the Consumer Product Safety agency ever changed anything about how refrigerator doors open from the inside, but I do remember lots of children, especially in rural areas with lots of home grown food being stored or frozen, being found dead in either a refrigerator or a freezer. Obviously a freezer is quite different, but it's still the same sort of home accident/ tragedy. One little boy who died in a compartment of a small refrigerator was a cousin to my next door neighbor when we were growing up. He was the couple's only child, very loved. They never recovered and the father committed suicide years later. I remember our parents wondering how the boy got in there and then how he couldn't get out, but it happened.

Oh, and toy chests too. I remember when the standards were changed for toy chest lids because children were climbing into them and suffocating.

Since I have heard of so many of these types of things happening, I think and hope it probably was a horrible accident, not homicide.